Real AI: Chatting with the ChatGPT app, real estate agents and Chatbot privacy dilemma, headlines and an AI Quote of the Week
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. Chatting with the ChatGPT app A splash screen inside my ChatGPT app on my iPhone 14 recently popped up, inviting me to select a "voice." Its prompt was that I could converse with ChatGPT rather than a text search. So, I went into Settings, which is a little tricky to find. First, go to the top left of the screen and tap the two uneven bars. Then look at the bottom left of your screen and tap on the three dots across from your account icon—that's the one with the two large letters and your name—and it will display your ChatGPT Settings. Under the "SPEECH" section in Settings is "Voice" – give it a tap. Currently, there are five voice choices to choose from, all with object names: Breeze, Sky, Juniper, Cove, and Ember. Touch to play the voice, pick the one you want, and touch the "Confirm" button on the bottom to save. Close out and tap the ChatGPT logo at the top left, and you will be back on the main "Prompt" screen. To enable a conversation, look at the bottom right corner of your screen, next to where you usually type a prompt and tap the headphones icon to begin your chat with ChatGPT. From personal use and observations, like all things AI-related today, we are in the very early stages. There's quite a bit of lag time when processing a conversation, which I am sure will improve. The lag is annoying because when you talk to other talk-to-text or translation apps—like Otter or Google Translate—the response is instant and in real-time. Clearly, ChatGPT is still perfecting this feature, which is probably why the setting to turn it on is so hard to find. I imagine the app also does a lot of behind-the-scenes processing to use the chat feature. At times, it feels like I may be able to enter the same prompt by text and get a faster result. I am sure that's just a perception because we are in an "I want it now" phase when using tech. Regardless, the impact for real estate agents on the go could be massive. This feature will be wickedly valuable when it is ready for prime time. We wrote early about how we knew that voice commands would replace text, and now we are getting closer. Think about the potential value of being able to Chat with ChatGPT at will, and not just on your phone, but your desktop and smart devices. Imagine if ChatGPT was built into CarPlay. How much more productive could you be when driving? Agents still spend a lot of time in their cars, and having the power of chatting with ChatGPT, well, that will be just the beginning. The chatbot privacy dilemma Axios, our favorite all-things-AI news source, published a follow-up story this week on the challenge employers continue to face: keeping confidential information out of ChatGPT and other chatbots. The problem is it's a catch-22: Employers benefit when workers use AI, as it can significantly boost productivity and save their staff time. That can quickly add up to a huge increase in profitability for firms. But when employees share confidential information about their company, it could potentially expose employers to tremendous risks—both competitively and financially. Techopedia also points to a study from 1Password that "found 92% of security professionals have concerns about generative AI, citing issues like employees entering sensitive data, using AI trained with malicious data, and falling for AI-driven phishing attempts." The study also found that 22% of employees said they used generative AI despite violating company rules. This brings us to real estate agents and their brokerages. Nearly all agents are independent contractors, which means they get to pick and choose the tech they want to use, including generative AI like ChatGPT. It's nearly impossible for brokerages to put guardrails in place to protect them from the use of Gen AI by their agents, just like it's almost impossible for them to fully regulate the use of their brand (think brokerage logo, colors, and designs of promo materials) by agents. But now the risk isn't just to the brokerage's image: it could also potentially affect the brokerage's pocketbook. Think about the publicly traded brokerages, the thousands of independent agents who hang their licenses with them, and the risk of confidential information being input into ChatGPT. Some may argue that agents are not privy to inside information, and while that may be true, they do know about many things a brokerage does not—and does not want to—share publicly. If regular companies face a dilemma controlling the use of Gen AI among employees, consider an industry that has been among the first to broadly adopt this new tech, which is staffed almost entirely by independent contractors. How risky is that, and what will brokerages do about it? AI Fast Facts Only 22% of customer service providers have adopted generative AI to their business – Amdocs Among "AI high performer" companies, 25% say their complete system is equipped with an AI monitoring and alerting system, compared to 12% of other companies – McKinsey Less than a third (28%) of organizations are extensively using AI cybersecurity measures – IBM 46% of business and cyber professionals say that their biggest concern about the impact of generative AI on cybersecurity is the increased capabilities in phishing, malware, and deep fakes – Statista 39% of companies surveyed said automation and generative AI is the most relevant investment for business growth, with 33% saying flexible and hybrid work is the most important – Dell/IDC Source: Atera AI Headlines – Take 5 Zillow exec talks using AI to optimize home buying process | 4/4/24 - The GW HatchetHyperbolic claims by Zillow exec on its use of AI, including Zestimate error rate now at 2% Recruiters turn to AI in their quest to lure top agents | 4/2/24 - HousingWireTech-based vendors are utilizing AI to streamline recruiting for real estate firms. Business Schools Add AI to Curriculum | 4/3/24 - PYMNTSMore top-tier universities like American University and Duke are teaching students to use generative AI. NYC's AI chatbot was caught telling businesses to break the law. The city isn't taking it down | 4/3/24 - APThe darker side of AI is revealed when a faulty AI language model is utilized. Using data science and AI to answer the need for speed in uncertain times | 4/2/24 - Altus GroupOne of the many key sessions at the New York Urban Land Institute spring meeting next week. AI Quote of the Week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Real AI: AI's sophomore slump, 5 great ChatGPT party tricks, headlines, fast facts and AI quote of the week
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. Welcome to AI's sophomore slump Last week, the headlines warned, "It's not just you: ChatGPT is down for many worldwide." For those who rely on ChatGPT for work assistance, having your AI offline can be frightful. It's sort of like misplacing your iPhone: you go into a panic until it is found. How many times do you refresh your browser when this happens? Overloaded AI servers, slow responses, and system errors are becoming more common. Yet these troubles pale compared to what is happening as generative AI enters its "mushy phase" – a term consultant Chetan Sharma used to describe it, according to Axios. AI is in what's akin to a sophomore slump. Remember, ChatGPT has only been around since November 2022. That slump is fueled by the collision of hyperbole and the fact that AI makes mistakes. Sometimes, colossal ones. Generative AI is in its overpromising and underdelivering phase, and people are taking notice. Business Insider reported this week that Goldman Sachs found that more than a third of S&P 500 companies mentioned AI in their fourth-quarter earnings reports. Overpromising can be costly. The SEC charged two investment advisory firms with making false claims about their use of AI. They agreed to pay nearly a half-million dollars in fines. It turns out they were not using AI to predict hot new companies and trends. Many companies are finding that when they try to scale AI, they run into accuracy and reliability problems. AI isn't where they need it to be—yet. But let's be clear. Despite these issues, generative AI is not a fad that will eventually disappear or stall out like Web 3.0. It may get worse before it gets better, but it will get a lot better. Patience pays in the case of Generative AI, and ChatGPT-5 is coming, maybe this summer or by fall. But you can bet that when it does arrive, it will be better—a lot better. 5 Great ChatGPT Party Tricks While Generative AI struggles through its sophomore year, we want to share some cool things you can do with ChatGPT-4 that you may not know about, but should. Here are five party tricks that can help you be more productive now with ChatGPT: Turn a PDF into text: Yes, there are other ways of doing this but using ChatGPT seems faster – and better. Plus, you avoid the bizarre formatting issue that plagues some PDFs when you attempt to cut and paste. Attach your PDF file and give the prompt, "Please turn the attached PDF into a readable text file." It not only perfectly displays the text allowing you to cut and paste, but also creates a downloadable text file. Extract numbers interspersed with text: Let's say you keep track of your expenses in a note file that says, "Thurs. Dinner $54.25, Sat. Lunch $22.71, Taxi to Airport $65, Tip to Bell staff $5, and Tip for Maid $3, etc." You can copy and paste this text into ChatGPT and ask it to give you your total expenses. ChatGPT can also break it down by the expense categories you need. No more entering things into a spreadsheet as ChatGPT can analyze your numbers and run any calculation you need, despite text being interspersed with numbers. Translation wizard: Forget Google Translate, use ChatGPT as you're going to get a better result. Writing an email in French to a GM at a hotel in Paris, the quality of the output was fantastic – according to the GM, who did not know it was created by ChatGPT. Attempts in the past to use Google Translate yield responses of "Did you use Google to write this?" ChatGPT understands the context of the communication and that gives it a huge advantage. Stunning fact: it can assist with translations for more than 100 languages, and is highly efficient and effective with English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, and many more. Best poems and limericks for celebrations, ever: If you want to have a little fun in recognizing a colleague winning an award, celebrating a milestone, graduation, or retirement, use ChatGPT to help you create a poem, haiku, or limerick for the occasion. The key to a fantastic result is to give it as many details as you can about the person/people you want recognized. The more specific information you provide, the better the verses will be. Data analysis from a survey: You don't have to pay Survey Monkey extra to find statistical trends and interesting data points. Just upload an Excel file of all your survey results and ask ChatGPT to do the analysis. It can do cross-tabulation to find relationships between multiple variables. It's how Delta Media found in its annual brokerage leadership survey that female-led brokerages, particularly those with medium to large agent teams and high transaction volumes, are the most likely to use AI, and that the youngest and oldest male leaders, overseeing smaller brokerages, are less inclined to integrate AI. Let ChatGPT do the hard math for you at no extra charge. We'd love to hear about your ChatGPT party trick. AI Fast Facts 46% of U.S. adults express concerns that AI systems are being developed too quickly – Ipsos 75% of consumers surveyed said they are comfortable with chatbots handling routine customer service tasks. However, only 33% approve of chatbots managing complex inquiries – Authority Hacker More than half of online shoppers in the United States employ voice assistants to aid in product research, and over a third use them to add items to their shopping lists – Oberlo 82% of business leaders surveyed believe AI enhances job satisfaction and performance – Forbes Nearly 80% of CEOs have already made or plan to make changes in how they utilize conversational AI technologies to manage client engagement – Accenture Source: Master of Code Global AI Headlines – Take 5 The next phase of AI is here — and it's not looking pretty | 3/26/24 - Business InsiderCould AI be reaching its era of struggle? ASU in Tempe to begin offering graduate degree in business AI this fall | 3/27/24 - KTAR NewsThis new degree comes in the wake of ASU's collaboration with OpenAI. AI Is Learning the Secret Language of Pipes to Detect Water Leaks | 3/24/24 - PropmodoAI-powered tech is revolutionizing water management, saving money, and reducing environmental impact. As AI booms, land near nuclear power plants becomes hot real estate | 3/25/24 - The RegisterDatacenter operators are taking an interest in nuclear-powered AI. AI is about to change the homebuilding process, from start to finish | 3/25/24 - FortuneCompanies like Compass and JLL are utilizing AI tools that simplify homebuilding for agents. AI Quote of the Week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Real AI: How current are the chatbots, facts, headlines and an AI quote of the week
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. How current are the chatbots ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Pi? A client recently asked what seemed to be a pretty straightforward question about AI chatbots: "What is the most accurate and up-to-date AI engine available for content?" The truth is there is no easy answer to this question. First, the leading chatbots continually improve through iteration and new training data. Second, there really are two parts to this question: 1) how current is the training data that the content a chatbot creates is based on, and 2) how current is the data the chatbot provides to answer a general question? How current are the leading chatbots? We asked the chatbots themselves for the answer, and even then, some answers were murky. ChatGPT 4 – April 2023 Our prompt: "How current is your information?" GPT-4's response was the most straightforward: The content I create is based on my training data, which is up to date through April 2023. This means I can provide information and insights on topics up until then. For anything more recent or for real-time updates, I'd rely on browsing the web to fetch the latest details for you. Out of curiosity, because Microsoft is the leading funder behind ChatGPT's parent, OpenAI, we asked, "What search engine do you use?" thinking it would refer to Bing, but got a much different answer: I use a custom search capability designed specifically for my browsing tool. It's not directly comparable to publicly available search engines like Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo, but it's designed to efficiently retrieve information from across the web to answer your questions with the most relevant and up-to-date results. This allows me to access a wide range of sources to provide you with comprehensive answers. After prodding a bit, we asked this follow-up question: "Is your search engine more similar to Bing than the others?" ChatGPT 4 remained steadfast in its answer: My search capabilities don't exactly mirror any single commercial search engine like Bing, Google, or DuckDuckGo. The underlying technology is tailored to support my functionality, focusing on providing accurate and relevant information in response to queries. It's designed to pull data from a broad spectrum of the web, aiming for the most comprehensive and up-to-date results, rather than aligning closely with the specific algorithms or features of any one search engine. Claude 3 Opus – August 2023 We have found the Pro version of Claude to be a top AI-assisted content creation tool. We gave it the same prompt – "How current is your information?" – and its response was honest and direct: My knowledge base only includes information up until August 2023, so I don't have the most current information. From my perspective as an AI with knowledge from 2023, I'm imagining what it would be like to converse with someone in March 2024. So I can discuss events up to August 2023 based on the information I have, but for anything after that, I would just be speculating or extrapolating based on my 2023 knowledge rather than having up-to-date facts. Let me know if you have any other questions! Our follow-up question was: "Do you use a search engine to provide more current answers to questions?" Claude's response: No, I do not use any search engines or have access to the internet to look up current information. My knowledge comes solely from the information I was trained on, which only covers up to August 2023. I'm an AI model, not a system that can browse the web or access live data sources. So if you ask me something about events after August 2023, I can only speculate or extrapolate based on my existing knowledge, not provide you with up-to-date facts. Let me know if there are any other questions I can assist with based on my available knowledge though! Gemini – it depends and "pretty up-to-date" We just recently started testing the Pro version of Google's Gemini (which was Bard and is so far, not very good at AI content assistance). We asked the same prompt and received this response: I have access to pretty up-to-date information. Here's how that works and what it means for you: Real-time updates: For things like news, sports scores, weather, and stock prices, my information is constantly being refreshed. Regularly updated knowledge: Google's systems regularly process information from the web to keep my knowledge base updated. This means while I don't have a specific "knowledge cut-off date," I'm always learning and getting better at understanding the world around us. Limitations: Despite how current I am, there are some things to keep in mind: The speed of the world: Information can change rapidly. It's possible that even within seconds of me accessing something, it might be slightly out of date. Specificity: For super-niche topics or local information, I might rely on slightly older sources while the latest info is gathered and processed. Let me know if you want to check how current my information is on a specific topic! Our follow-up: "Is this true for the content you create?" and Gemini responded: Yes and no. Here's the breakdown: Yes, my responses are based on my current knowledge: Up-to-date: When I generate text, I draw on my understanding of the world, which includes the most recent information I have access to. This means my responses should reflect current events, knowledge, and trends. Not fixed: My responses aren't pre-written. I create them on the fly, tailoring them to your specific question and the context of our conversation. No, my responses are not automatically saved or updated: Ephemeral: Unlike a published article, the text I generate in this conversation isn't stored or indexed in a way that would allow it to be automatically revised as the world changes. Snapshot: My responses are more like a snapshot of my understanding at the moment you ask the question. Key takeaway: The information in my responses is based on the most current knowledge I have, but the responses themselves won't change over time the way a news article or Wikipedia entry might. We wanted to know what search engine Gemini used, and once again, it gave a "it depends" answer but admitted that it "can often access up-to-date information directly through Google's internal systems, rather than needing to perform an external web search…" and added, "There are cases where I may still use Google Search," including when you ask it to search the web or "when I need to verify a fact or get the most recent perspective on something." Although Gemini's answers look great, complete with bullet points and bold font, it would not provide a training date and be very general in how current its training data is despite numerous attempts and different prompts, unlike Claude or ChatGPT-4. Pi.ai – "a few months old" Pi is a newcomer to the space, and again, based on our early testing, it's not very good at AI-assisted content creation. We asked Pi, "How current is your training data?" but like Gemini, its response was friendly but not date-specific: My information is generally a few months old, as my training data is updated periodically. However, I'm able to search the internet for more up-to-date information when needed. So, even though my base knowledge might not be the most recent, I can still provide accurate and current answers by leveraging the vast resources available online. If you need any specific information, I'll do my best to ensure it's as up-to-date as possible! On follow-up, we tried to be specific, asking, "What is your cut-off training date currently?" Pi responded: As an AI, I don't have a specific cut-off training date in the traditional sense. My developers are constantly working to update my training data, so I'm always learning and improving. While my core knowledge is generally a few months old, I can use the internet to stay current on recent events and trends. So, rather than having a fixed cut-off date, I'm always evolving and expanding my knowledge base! Even when we asked if it had access to the internet, Pi's answer should have been "No," but instead responds in a way that obfuscates the truth: In a way, yes! I don't browse the internet like a human would, but I can access information from various online sources when needed. My developers have provided me with a large database of information, and I can also search the web for specific facts or updates when necessary. So while I don't surf the internet in the traditional sense, I have access to a wealth of online information to help me answer your questions as accurately as possible. Pushing back to clarify and see if Pi would admit it can't connect to the internet, it acknowledged that was correct, adding, "I can only provide an answer based on the information I have in my existing database, which is updated regularly but may not be completely real-time." Final thought Through this exercise, we learned that sometimes, getting a straight answer takes a bit of effort when it comes to chatbots and that the bot's "personality" can get in its own way of providing a straightforward answer. AI Fast Facts Around 46% of U.S. companies have saved between $25,000 to $70,000 by using ChatGPT – Statista 96% of companies hiring in 2024 say candidates with AI skills will have an advantage – Resume Builder 88% of marketers stated they need to increase the use of automation and AI to meet customer expectations and stay competitive – Mailchimp More than one-fifth of Generative AI users are 25 to 34 years old – Insider Intelligence 56% of companies surveyed say "inaccuracy" is the biggest risk of adopting generative AI. However, less than one-third of those companies have systems in place for mitigating such inaccuracies – McKinsey Source: Semrush AI Headlines – Take 5 14 indispensable AI tools for real estate agents | 3/13/24 - HousingWireEditors pick AI tools for lead gen, marketing, CRMs, chatbots, and more. AI is not ready for primetime | 3/13/24 - CNNAI still has a ways to go in fixing its flaws. Scammers Use Agent Deepfakes to Fool Buyers, Sellers | 3/7/24 - Realtor MagazineAI is making it challenging to determine legitimacy in a real estate transaction. Redfin rolls out new AI assistant tool that answers homebuyer questions | 3/7/24 - GeekWire"Ask Redfin" is the latest AI copilot that can understand user questions and produce answers. Why AI Is the Key to Nvidia's $2 Trillion Valuation | 3/1/24 - WSJLearn more about AI's role in Nvidia joining the $2 trillion market cap club. AI Quote of the Week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Top 10 Most Popular Articles of February: AI prompts, a little tough love, and more
We're in the final few weeks of winter (thankfully!), which means that the spring selling season is right around the corner. Last month, RE Technology subscribers got ready for this seasonal shift by reading articles about getting your car prepped for the road (article #1 below), starting real estate conversations with friends and family (#10) — and they even got a little bit of tough love on surviving the current market (#3). To find out what else agents and brokers were reading in February, check out our full list of last month's most-read articles below: 1. Road Warrior Checklist: 30 Things to Keep in Your CarWhether you're traveling between showings or picking up supplies for an open house, your vehicle acts as your de facto second office. And like any office, it needs to be well-stocked with the essentials you need to do your job. When you're on the road, that means being prepared for anything! So, intrepid road warriors, here are 30 ideas for on-the-go supplies to keep in your moveable office 2. Top 5 Hot Tech Trends in 2024 and How They Will Benefit YouFrom artificial intelligence to next-generation devices, new tech tools promise to enhance efficiency, improve client relations, and, ultimately, help you grow your business. But how do you know that all the buzz about this new tech won't be another case of over-promising and under-delivering? Let's dive into five new technologies that will make waves in 2024 and explore how they can benefit your real estate business. 3. 5 Things Your Broker Is Too Nice to Say (But You Need to Hear Anyway)Is a tough real estate market the right time for some tough love? It is if you're using the market as an excuse to be complacent, says Jimmy Burgess, CEO of BHHS Beach Properties of Florida. Burgess shares a little tough love here — five things you may not be hearing from your broker, but need to if you're going to thrive in the current market. 4. 15 Best AI Commands for Real Estate ProfessionalsAs a real estate professional, you know that staying on top of technology trends can give you a competitive edge. And artificial intelligence is shaping up to be one of the most useful and exciting tools out there. So how can you leverage AI to boost your real estate business? This article explores 15 of the best AI commands tailored specifically for real estate agents. 5. Friday Freebie: Scripts for Handling Objections, Lead Gen Strategies, and MoreA challenging market is the perfect time to challenge yourself by getting back to real estate basics. By revisiting the fundamentals of real estate success, you ensure your business' foundation is solid — and that you're primed for profit no matter the market conditions. This Friday Freebie highlights a guide that covers four fundamental areas of real estate — from filling your sales pipeline to answering objections — for you to master in order to crush it in 2024. 6. From Buyer's Agent to Listing Agent: One Realtor's StoryIt's no secret that being a listing agent is potentially more lucrative than being a buyer's agent. But being a listing agent is no walk in the park, especially with fewer homeowners willing to enter the market at all. So how do you transition to working with sellers rather than buyers — and do it successfully? 7. 4 Ways Buyers Agents Can Show More Value to their ClientsAs the market continues to evolve and we look ahead to a 2024 poised to see shifts in interest rates and inventory, it's clear to all real estate pros: home buyers need hands-on help from buyers agents. From a consumer's point of view, they may not know why, or think they can do it themselves. Take the guesswork out of the equation with these four ways you can show your value to your buyer clients upfront. 8. How Real Estate Agents Can Use AI to Manufacture InventoryTop agents are among the earliest adopters of artificial intelligence, working AI into their daily workflow to create content, analyze market trends, and enhance customer service. Today's agents have a unique opportunity to use AI to significantly expand their business, engaging existing clients and prospects in a new way that didn't exist six months ago. 9. The Top 10 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand Online, from REALTORS® Who KnowNearly every real estate transaction begins with an online search, making your online presence as a real estate professional one of the most vital parts of your business. Where to begin? Getting started with a .realtor™ or .realestate domain is easy, affordable, and a no-brainer, according to industry experts who have seen their businesses grow and thrive since making the switch. Here are 10 key benefits they think all real estate professionals should know, in their own words. 10. How to Spark Real Estate Conversations with Friends, Family, Clients and ProspectsBeing able to provide insights and answer real estate questions on the fly is the sign of a true, local market expert. And the ability to simply start conversations out of the blue with confidence, and with data-backed details, is a formula for success. Here are three ways RPR can prep you to be a conversation-into-conversion type of agent.

Real AI: ChatGPT adds memory, Trying Perplexity.ai, facts, headlines and a Quote of the Week from Google
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. ChatGPT is adding a memory feature OpenAI revealed this week that it is testing a new memory feature for ChatGPT. The goal is a more personalized and valuable experience without providing expert prompts for ChatGPT to remember any previous prompts or stay within the same prompt set. A key new feature of this potentially potent addition is that you can control what ChatGPT remembers. You will be able to tell it what to remember, ask it what it remembers, and tell it to forget things it remembers conversationally or in settings: Settings > Personalization > Memory. You can view the memories and delete specific memories or clear its memory cache. You also will be able to turn off memory collection, so it won't create new or use existing memories, according to OpenAI. One caveat: deleting the chat does not erase the memory; you must delete the memory separately. This new feature will be handy for anyone using ChatGPT to write or think in a particular person's style. OpenAI offers a few other examples: You've explained that you prefer meeting notes to have headlines, bullets, and action items summarized at the bottom. ChatGPT remembers your formatting style and recaps future meetings this way. You've told ChatGPT you own a neighborhood coffee shop. When brainstorming messaging for a social post celebrating a new location, ChatGPT knows where to start. You mention that you have a toddler and that she loves jellyfish. When you ask ChatGPT to help create her birthday card, it suggests a jellyfish wearing a party hat. As a kindergarten teacher with 25 students, you prefer 50-minute lessons with follow-up activities. ChatGPT remembers this when helping you create lesson plans. Again, the new memory capability that ChatGPT is adding is being tested. OpenAI announced, "We are rolling out to a small portion of ChatGPT free and Plus users this week to learn how useful it is. We will share plans for broader rollout soon." One of the best parts of this new capability is that its memory (unlike ours) will improve over time: the more you use it, the better it will get. Over time, you'll notice it more and more. Again, this is another ChatGPT leap forward in its product personalization movement. Next week: A look at Sora, OpenAI's new text-to-video tool, in very limited release. Trying Perplexity.ai Staying on the personalization trend in AI, Perplexity.ai is worth a try. Dubbed a "conversational search engine," like ChatGPT, Claude.ai, or Gemini, it answers queries in natural language predictive text. But it focuses on helping you find through search by simply asking a question. It returns fully sourced answers. Perhaps its coolest feature is how it sources – embedding a footnote with an active link inside its answers. Most importantly, the sources were accurate, the links worked, and the information was current. Accurate sources and matching links are still hit-and-miss in the top AI tools, and most don't do very well with the most recent events. For example, we asked the free version of Perplexity.ai to tell us what it knows about something very current: the 2024 Delta Media Real Estate Leadership Survey. It provided an extensive answer, citing nearly two dozen sources. Below is an example of how it uses a citation from one of the bullet points in its answer: AI adoption in real estate is widespread, with 75% of brokerages already using the technology and nearly 80% reporting that their agents have adopted AI tools. Despite this rapid integration, there remains persistent anxiety over the adequacy of safeguards to manage the risks associated with AI. 2 5 The free model uses ChatGPT 3.5 and then fuses it with its own LLM or large language model. It also allows the user to save their conversations. Furthermore, it features a switch to turn on "Copilot," a mode that will enable you to refine your queries, often prompted by follow-up questions from the AI. Perplexity Pro, which we have yet to test, allows over 300 Copilot queries a day, which again, handles more complex prompts, more thorough research, and, as a result, provides more accurate answers. The most remarkable feature: You get to pick the underlying AI model to use, including ChatGPT-4, Claude 2.1, or Gemini, and you can switch between these to see which one provides the better answer. It also supports file uploads that can be read by Claude 2.1 and ChatGPT-4. Again, give it a try and share your feedback with [email protected]. AI Five Fast Facts Research shows that members of Gen Z —"Zoomers" — are more likely to want to learn AI skills than Boomers (1.6x) or Gen X (1.1x) – LinkedIn Around one-third of this year's graduating college seniors — and more than half of tech majors — say they plan to use GenAI in their careers – Handshake 57% of Gen Zers and 62% of Millennials surveyed said they were more excited about the potential benefits of AI than they were worried about the risks – Axios About 50% of graduating college students stated they plan to build their skill set in light of the emergence of generative AI – Handshake LinkedIn has seen an average increase of 75% each month in members worldwide adding terms like "GAI," "ChatGPT," "Prompt Engineering" and "Prompt Crafting" to their profiles in 2023 – LinkedIn Sources: Axios and Handshake AI Headlines Take 5 What's Wrong With This Rental Listing? The Furniture Is AI. | 2/12/24 - ViceShady real estate agents and landlords are using AI staging to make subpar rental listings look better. AI Could Kill Cold Calling | 2/14/24 - PropmodoAI is helping agents enhance their client list, but is it at the cost of engagement and efficiency? Family Office Investing Requires Mounds of Paperwork. AI Is Going to Help | 2/13/24 - Barron'sAI will make manual paperwork a thing of the past and maximize the time to analyze the gathered data. AI's Co-Pilot Role Could Increase Employment In The Real Estate Sector | 2/15/24 - Times PropertyAI is creating new roles in real estate such as AI trainers, system designers, data technicians, and so forth. AI and Automation: The New Weapons in Southern California's Slumping Real Estate Market | 2/14/24 - BNN BreakingSouthern California real estate agents are becoming more dependent on AI and automation to break the market slump. Quote of the Week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Real AI: Combating lazy AI, Bard Art, facts, headlines, and the Quote of the week
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. Combating AI laziness How often have you had to "Regenerate" a response in ChatGPT because it did not complete your assigned task? You are not alone. Declining performance became widely reported by users in December. Users labeled ChatGPT's degraded performance with a very human term, calling it lazy. One immediate workaround for ChatGPT laziness was to complete more significant assignments by breaking them into smaller chunks. ChatGPT appears to stall more often with larger tasks. Another workaround was not to attempt larger projects during prime US work hours but to schedule your ChatGPT time to late at night. We've also found success in simply starting a new prompt and asking GPT-4 to finish the unfinished section, but that takes a little more instruction. Press reports suggested simply telling ChatGPT to "take a deep breath" before starting over. Others asked it to perform the task "step-by-step." This week, OpenAI, parent of ChatGPT, announced it released a fix – well, sort of. You see, the fix was solely for its newer enterprise version, GPT-4 Turbo, which is still in limited preview. The expectation is that, eventually, OpenAI will address the same issues in the free GPT 3.5 version and the subscriber GPT-4 version (we have truncated the models as we notice that OpenAI is starting to get rid of the "Chat" part) and make it less lazy. For now, we must keep testing workarounds when ChatGPT stalls out and hope OpenAI moves a little more swiftly in fixing issues. A month in tech time feels like an eternity. Bard Art Google's Gemini is getting a lot of attention – good and bad – but its brother Bard just got an important update. Bard can now generate images, much like ChatGPT can with DALL-E embedded. If you have signed up for Bard access, you can try it out at this link. We asked Bard to "create an image that depicts how real estate agents can use Bard," and it produced these four sorta-lifelike "photos": The people are a little creepy in the montage photo (upper left). For fun, we asked ChatGPT to do the same thing: "Create an image that depicts how real estate agents can use ChatGPT." We asked for four images. Creating four images took four separate prompts because ChatGPT can't count. When we asked for three more images, it said it provided three but only offered one. Then we asked for two more. It said it provided two but only offered one. It delivered these: Notice how much more in-tuned Bard is to what an agent really does and the right environment he/she/they works in? ChatGPT makes it look like real estate agents work at NASA. Real estate is complex, but it is not rocket science, yet somehow ChatGPT thinks it is. AI Fast Facts Top 10 uses of AI by real estate agents today: include blogs, emails and/or letters (67%), social media posts (60%), website content (44%) and writing personal bios (43%), brochures, flyers, postcards (40%), asking questions to understand a topic (35%), marketing or business planning (29%), video scripts (25%) and automating tasks (19%). How do real estate's top brokerage execs plan to use AI in the future for their businesses? The number one answer was digital marketing, selected by nearly three in four leaders (73%), closely followed by social media (72%). Other plans to use AI in 2024? Half of the leaders answered client content (50%), followed by more than one in three planning to use AI for data analysis and reporting (37%) and research (36%). Fear of AI? More than half of the top brokerage execs said they are "worried or very worried" that AI "does not have the appropriate guardrails to limit their risk or liability." Brokerage most likely to use AI: Typically led by a female, aged 31-39 or 50-59, heading up a medium to large brokerage with 101-500 agents or more and managing average annual transactions in the range of $501 million to $1.5 billion or more. Sources: Delta Media 2024 Real Estate Leadership Survey AI Headlines: Take 5 Real Estate and Artificial Intelligence – The Fakes and the Risks | 1/29/24 - ATTOM DataWhile AI is bringing its power to real estate, it's also a double-edged sword with its fair share of fraud. How AI and a changing rental market will shape property management in 2024 | 1/30/24 - HousingWireAI is expected to help property management professionals streamline workflow to save significant amounts of time and eliminate rote tasks. Google Parent Chooses AI Over Real Estate — for Now | 1/29/24 - CoStarAlphabet has spent more than $1.8 billion to end office deals. AI will be huge, is like 'having a summer intern' | 1/29/24 - InmanAdam Goldberg of OpenAI shares at Inman the importance of ensuring that "intern" has the right tools and direction. AI companies will need to start reporting their safety tests to the US government | 1/29/24 - Associated PressThe US government is requiring AI companies share vital information with the Commerce Department, including safety tests. Quote the week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Real AI: The magic of the prompt, AI dominates Connect NY, facts, headlines and the Quote of the week
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. The magic of the prompt There's a secret to maximizing the effectiveness of generative AI that every real estate practitioner who uses AI must know above all else: the key to unlocking the best AI has to offer is in your prompts. This is a universal AI truth. It does not matter if you are using ChatGPT, Claude, or any other AI language model. The magic of maximizing AI effectiveness can be found by perfecting your prompts. The principle of "garbage in, garbage out," or GIGO, still applies. If your prompt is poor, you are going to get a poor-quality result. Many real estate professionals, when first using ChatGPT, often provide generic or general prompts that delivers generic answers and content. When crafting your prompts, consider these five Ps: Preparation: Before submitting your prompt, take time to carefully think through what you are trying to achieve. Draft your request in a separate document where you can revise and refine it. Provide the context and provide as much detail as possible. Also, share the goal of your inquiry. Precision: Be specific and clear in your instructions. ChatGPT does its best when given highly detailed, clear prompts. Avoid general queries by specifying the type of information you are seeking as well as the format you need it in. Patience: One of the first rules you will learn to improve your use of ChatGPT is to never accept the first output. Understand that getting your desired response is highly likely to require some back-and-forth interaction. This is one of the best ways to learn how rephrasing or expanding on your initial prompt will unlock more effective results. Probing: Don't hesitate to ask follow-up questions or request elaboration on certain points. If you ask ChatGPT to assist with an 850-word blog post, do a word count: it's likely to be off, often falling significantly short. Push back and ask for a more expansive draft. Don't be afraid to ask it for examples, or request clarification on a specific part of the response. Persistence: If the response you receive isn't what you expected or if it lacks certain details, be persistent. AI also can hallucinate and provide you with a completely inaccurate response. If it does, and the error is obvious, point it out to ChatGPT and ask for a better result. Don't be afraid to start over and rework your prompt, incorporating feedback or additional information from previous interactions where you had better success. Reiterate your request with adjusted wording or additional context, and that can help move ChatGPT closer to delivering the response you need. The bottom line: Well-prepared prompts lead to much better and more original results. AI dominates Inman Connect NY Returning from Inman Connect NY last year was a bit of a bummer. ChatGPT had exploded on the scene two months earlier and our expectation was a slew of AI panels. Or the very least, a hands-on ChatGPT track. Instead, Connect NY was nearly ChatGPT free. What a difference a year makes! AI was everywhere at Connect NY 2024. If it wasn't in the title of a keynote or panel, it was mentioned in nearly every discussion. Sitting in on many of the major AI sessions yielded a mix of the magnificent and mediocre. We'll pass on the mediocre and share a gold nugget that was a magnificent find: a giveaway from Phil Stringer after his deep dive into perfecting prompts. I did not know about Phil and never heard him speak before Connect. As I told him afterwards, I was fully prepared to be seriously disappointed. I've written about how so many real estate conference AI speakers have been complete duds. They all have been spectators, not doers. The title, "Your Custom 2024 AI-Powered Content Plan" made me suspect Phil was a poser. I was wrong, very wrong, thankfully. A former COO of a North Carolina real estate brokerage, Phil created the "The AI Agent Academy," becoming an AI coach and speaker. For his Connect talk, he polled the crowd to vote on one of five presentations – he only had time for one – that included using his highly creating one year's worth of a newsletter campaign, a year of blog posts (100), a year of TikToks or Insta Reels, a year of YouTube videos or a year of ads. The year of ads won. Phil went through his process, providing detailed prompts for ChatGPT to first understand your business and goals, create highly detailed client personas with a list of pain points, create the targeted ads, and then provide the "hooks" needed to make the ads work. Here's the kicker: at the end of his talk, he gave away all his well-crafted, highly detailed prompts for all five marketing programs, not just the ad one he covered at Connect. As long as this link remains alive, you can get your PDF of all five program prompts here. The only big disappointment in Connect NY this time around? No Rabbit R1 giveaways. Next Connect, please. AI Five Fast Facts AI is expected to automate up to 800 million jobs by 2030 and create 97 million new AI-related roles – McKinsey More than one-third (37%) of business leaders said that AI will replace workers in 2024 – CNBC 85.1% of AI users utilize AI-powered CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for content creation and article writing – Authorityhacker Almost half (49%) of employers expect AI to have a positive impact on job growth – Weforum More than one-fourth (26%) of business organizations use AI for marketing and sales – IBM Sources: Various collected by AIMultiple AI Headlines Take 5 AI far too expensive to replace humans in most jobs, MIT study finds | 1/22/24 - Fortune The cost-effectiveness of AI should be considered in job replacement. Bracing against a rising tide of real estate fraud | 1/22/24 - HousingWire Scammers are weaponizing AI to commit fraud. AI Everywhere: The Unmissable Highlights From Davos 2024 | 1/22/24 - Forbes AI takes center stage at this year's World Economic Forum. The generative AI future will not be free | 1/19/24 - Business Insider Consumers should be ready to start paying for new AI models. When Might AI Outsmart Us? It Depends Who You Ask | 1/19/24 - TIME Experts debate if "human-level" AI will be able to surpass the human mind. Quote of the week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Real AI: No PR – AI will make you a ghost, facts, headlines and the word of the week
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. No PR? AI will make you a ghost While using generative AI, Victor Lund, Founding Partner at WAV Group, uncovered a new vital reason why public relations (PR) is essential for every firm, product, and service. His prompt requested AI to create information on firms that offer MLSs rev share for data aggregation and distribution. Granted, only a couple of firms offer this, but the chatbot response only identified one. Turns out the company that it missed doesn't have a PR program in place. Online, to AI at least, their company is a ghost. To AI, your company does not exist. Why is AI making PR so vital? If there is nothing to train on – if you don't have an online footprint – when someone enters a prompt about your firm, service or product, the chatbot will not return any results. More importantly, look at what Google is doing that's related to AI. The Wall Street Journal headline on Jan. 11, 2024 says it all: "Google Trims Hundreds of Jobs as It Marshals Resources for AI." If the world's No. 1 search engine company is going all-in on AI, here are three words for you: search will change. We are already seeing evidence of that with Google Gemini, the major chatbots all connecting to the Internet, and now Microsoft Bing prompting, "Ask me anything," not "Search." The only way Google stays ahead in the search space is through AI. The value of an ongoing PR campaign has been about establishing an online footprint. News releases are not about SEO (duplicative content rules that out), but they are door openers for conversations with reporters and bloggers, and what is proving to be more crucial than ever is that they add to your digital or online footprint. Now you absolutely need an online footprint to train generative AI tools. Otherwise, you are a ghost. Creating your own content for blogs and social media is great, but news coverage is gold. These are third-party expert information sources. AI will recognize the difference – and the value. Which source do you think will be perceived to have more value? The entire point of having a solid PR program is to help you tell your story with your words. You need to control the narrative of how your company, services, or products are described, or someone else will. And you'll be stuck with whatever moniker someone else comes up with – or spend years trying to unwind a market positioning that someone else labeled you. Finally, a good PR program returns a better ROI than perhaps any other communications or marketing-related tool. Two quotes from innovators to contemplate about the value of PR before AI: "Publicity is absolutely critical. A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front page ad." –Sir Richard Branson, founder, Virgin Group "If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on PR." –Bill Gates, founder, Microsoft Now fast-forward to the next few years and think about how much more essential having an ongoing PR program will be. Every company needs to leverage PR to update key audiences on relevant news stories that not only remind people about the company and its mission, but highlight vital developments that impact customers. Every product should also have its own cadence of releasing meaningful news that customers need to know about. Remember, news releases in and of themselves won't help with SEO, but earned news coverage and wire releases will provide the ingredients that will shape the narrative of how AI will harvest and include information about your company and its products. AI + CES As an early and regular attendee of last week's Consumer Electronics Show or CES, I can confirm firsthand it is the land of what's next in tech. One of the first shows I went to (I was in grad school and working for an LA PR firm part-time), I thought I heard Billy Joel playing live. It was a new technology called a Compact Disc or CD. But it sounded so real! This CES was all AI. Mirrors, rings, cars, TVs, grills, toothbrushes – even mattresses and pillows – are now leveraging AI. CNET does a great job describing some of this in its coverage. Check out this piece: "AI Is Everywhere at CES 2024. Here's the Coolest Tech We've Seen So Far." AI Five Fast Facts OpenAI's website receives nearly 1.8 billion visits per month – Similarweb Around 4 in 5 companies deem AI to be a top priority in their business strategy – Forbes 19 in every 20 customer interactions will be AI-assisted by 2025 – AI Business By next year, nearly 100 million people will be working in the AI sector, as the industry generates 12 million new jobs – World Economic Forum A survey of 1.4k+ sales pros found that 45% felt overwhelmed by the amount of tools in their tech stacks, and 78% said AI makes them more efficient in their roles. – Hubspot Sources: Various collected by AIMultiple AI Headlines Take 5 Alexa just got three new generative AI skills – here's how to try them | 1/10/24 - ZDNetUse Alexa to talk to Winston Churchill (and others), create a song, and even play 20 Questions. GPT Store is OpenAI's most compelling reason to become a ChatGPT Plus subscriber yet | 1/10/24 - ZDNetFrom tools to help you with code to personalized trail recommendations, the store is now open. AI is a vital part of CoreLogic's new Clareity Assure security platform for MLSs | 1/10/24 - WAV GroupClareity Assure can integrate as a front door to all MLS systems regardless of vendor. What's next for AI in 2024 | 1/4/24 - MIT Technology ReviewLearn about the four hot AI trends to watch out for this year. AI-powered misinformation is the world's biggest short-term threat, Davos report says | 1/10/24 - San Diego Union-TribuneAI's dark side can cause catastrophic damage. Word of the week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Real AI: AI fairness is a huge hurdle, AI can't count, fast facts, top headlines and Quote of the Week
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. AI fairness is a huge hurdle Of all the obstacles AI faces to continue its rocket-speed integration into our lives, the largest one it will need to overcome is fairness. In 2023, "responsible AI" became a buzzword we advised clients early on to embrace. In 2024, we will be adding another word – responsible and fair AI. As the Harvard Business Review noted in September, "…it has become increasingly apparent that the promises of AI aren't distributed equally — it risks exacerbating social and economic disparities, particularly across demographic characteristics such as race." Last week, Axios, perhaps America's leading AI news source, published "1 big thing: AI inequality trap for Black Americans." This headline is indicative of more to come on this subject as research from McKinsey shows. Trust us, this is only the beginning. In its report, "The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier," McKinsey warned that generative AI "has the potential to widen the racial economic gap in the United States by $43 billion each year," and in particular, widen the economic divide between White and Black households. That chasm is already massive: a report from the Federal Reserve notes the median wealth – total assets – for a Black household is $44,900 and $285,000 for a White household. The AI-generated problem: job losses. The McKinsey Report projects that AI is poised to eliminate, through automation, as much as half of all jobs that don't require a college degree and pay less than $42,000 a year (what they use as wealth threshold). The result is a major disparate impact on Blacks. Workers who are most at risk – those working in office support, production, and food services – are Black because they comprise a significant majority in these jobs. AI is already struggling with algorithmic bias because what it knows is what we have taught it and we have systemic biases that AI has also learned. The Harvard Business Review story notes: Algorithmic bias occurs when algorithms make decisions that systematically disadvantage certain groups of people. It can have disastrous consequences when applied to key areas such as healthcare, criminal justice, and credit scoring. Scientists investigating a widely used healthcare algorithm found that it severely underestimated the needs of Black patients, leading to significantly less care. This is not just unfair, but profoundly harmful. The McKinsey report may be more impactful as it illustrates a potentially devastating concrete example: taking away jobs from Blacks. This subject is vital for every industry – real estate in particular – to pay attention to as this topic could emerge as the greatest risk for AI. Fairness is a hurdle that could impede AI adoption and its advancement – and for the right reasons. McKinsey does address this head-on, but this part is less likely to garner the headlines, as it notes: "But deployed thoughtfully, it (AI) could actually remove barriers to Black economic mobility." Somehow, I don't think that part of the study will get as much attention, but that is the right path forward. AI just might need AI to solve this quandary. AI can't count AI lies. You can call it "hallucinations" or anything else, but the bottom line is generative AI can give you the most convincing answers, only to be utterly false. Last week, we wrote about one valuable way an agent can use AI to crunch and analyze their most engaged newsletter subscribers. Things were going great until ChatGPT-4 spewed out a dataset that was more than 10x higher than it should be. Thankfully, it was easy to catch. We told ChatGPT that the numbers were wrong: without apology, it fixed it, outputting the correct dataset. When we asked it to provide in our prompts, links and sources to the research it was citing, the links were either dead or did not point to the correct place. Googling and Binging independently for the study revealed the data was completely fabricated. Try this: attach a specific number count requirement to any prompt requesting content in Claude.ai or ChatGPT-4. Ask for, say, a minimum of 500 words. You will likely get an output that begins with something like "Here is a 477-word draft…" Okay, not quite 500 words, but when you do an actual word count, you find the correct count is just north of 350 words! So, we tested this and found, again and again, the word count was never correct – ever. With an 800-word minimum requirement, even though AI will tell you it provided a "731-word version," the word count is actually just over 580 words. Recently, ChatGPT-4 has been improving, but still, you need to pay close attention to every piece of content you ask for AI to assist in creating, especially facts and figures. As I told a client earlier this week, when you use AI, know that it makes mistakes, so you must Reaganize it: trust but verify. AI Five Fast Facts According to McKinsey, about 69% of data processing tasks can be automated by AI, helping businesses increase their efficiency and productivity. Research shows that 8.4 billion AI-powered digital voice assistant units will be active in the world by 2024, eclipsing the total global population. A report by Outgrow highlights the top five industries that benefit from AI chatbots, which are real estate (28%), travel (16%), education (14%), healthcare (10%), and finance (5%). In a survey for senior executives, 69% of them consider AI "crucial" in responding to cybersecurity. When interviewed, around 62% of consumers stated they are willing to submit data to AI to improve their experience. Source: Various collected by Techdogs. AI Headlines Take 5 How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Streamline Property Transactions in 2024 | Newswatch - 12/18/23A take on how AI potentially can be used throughout real estate transactions to improve accuracy and speed. Movers: AI selects Brendan Brown as future top agent at Official | The Real Deal - 12/18/23Official, a boutique brokerage in the LA area, is using an AI mentoring program to evaluate the potential for agents to be top producers. How AI can help hiring managers recruit top talent | Business Insider - 12/20/23AI is being used to evaluate the resumes and skills of candidates at a quicker pace, but bias remains a concern. How AI is Revolutionizing the Real Estate Market | Yahoo! - 12/20/23Covers how AI is being used in the short-term rental space of real estate. Sure, artificial intelligence can provide real-time data on demand, but can it really replace Realtors? | Redwood City Pulse - 12/18/23A pragmatic view on what a human agent can do that AI can't. Quote of the Week – Microsoft's Nadella To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Real AI: AI Specializes, 5 Fast Facts, Top AI Headlines and Quote of the Week
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. AI specializes: gets smaller, smarter While Craig Newmark, founder of Craiglist, may not have changed his UI in decades, he has become an advocate of responsible AI. One of the nonprofits he supports, Moms First, announced an AI pilot to help people in New York secure paid leave with benefits: PaidLeave.ai. Via LinkedIn, Craig points out that AI, when used for a specialty such as this, may significantly positively impact customer service. While chatbots taking over initial customer service screening, creating a wall between you and a real person, is still failing miserably (see the FedEx debacle we wrote about), this AI use for CS is highly intriguing. He writes: "PaidLeave.ai acts as a personal assistant to people in New York state to help them figure out what they need to do to get their benefits. The process isn't easy, but PaidLeave.ai creates clear checklists and next steps — even drafts emails to your employer for you — to make the process as straightforward as possible. The best part? It talks to you like a human. There's no convoluted language or insurance jargon to decipher." Now, think about the implications for real estate. OJO Labs has been on this path (simplifying the complex) for nearly a decade. Initially, they set up their AI platform to help answer buyers' basic questions about their journey in great detail and with a human-like conversational style. It has morphed into much more than that, but this kind of specialization – using AI for a more narrow, specialized task – is now the big trend. Axios just covered "The push to make big AI small," noting the move to smaller, cheaper yet still powerful AI models, showing that even in AI, bigger – at least for specific tasks – may not mean better. Dozens of ChatGPT apps are available, and dozens of other chat AI apps fill Google Play and the Apple App Store. The real estate industry – especially tasks agents do every day that they don't particularly enjoy – is ripe for innovation. The problem is that most of these apps are not simple or as easy to use as they demo. Agents need an AI easy button, and my guess is that, like PaidLeave.ai, it's designed to simplify a complex and difficult process, as more easy buttons for real agents (and consumers) are coming. AI Five Fast Facts Nine of every 10 Americans currently use AI devices, programs, or services featuring some element of AI. 87% of baby boomers are reluctant to use voice assistants like Siri or Alexa because they prefer email as a mode of communication. 83% of businesses claim that AI is a strategic priority in their business strategy. One in every four companies adopts artificial intelligence to address labor shortages and customer pressure. 97% of companies believe ChatGPT will help their business in some form. Sources: Invezz – various sources Top AI Headlines Take 5 1. Top 10 Benefits of AI in the Real Estate Industry | AiThority - 12/3/23Mostly about how generative AI will be used in real estate, not actually being used – yet. 2. With Fannie Mae's adoption, AI's role in real estate is solidified | Inman - 11/29/23When Fannie Mae talks, the lending industry listens. 3. Is AI the answer? The hotel industry grapples with its implications. | Hotels Mag - 12/1/23Insight into how AI may reshape how hotels operate and deliver the customer experience. 4. There's a gap between AI talk and businesses actually using it | NBC - 12/3/23Big business is great at talking the AI talk, but so far sucks at using it. 5. If AI is so smart, why are AI customer service chats so clueless? | ConsumerAffairs - 12/6/23AI-reliant customer service is more about cutting costs than improving one's experience. Quote of the week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Real AI: Fannie Mae embraces CV, Claude.ai gets better, AI facts and top headlines
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. Fannie Mae embraces computer vision Craig Rowe at Inman News did a solid job with his recent piece on Fannie Mae embracing AI and computer vision or CV. It's important because when Fannie Mae makes a move, the mortgage industry follows. In June, Fannie Mae announced the use of "image recognition" to detect incorrect quality and condition ratings. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac require appraisal reports to include interior and exterior photos for funded properties. However, the GSEs only require one exterior front photo for each comparable. Fannie's turned to computer vision for condition validation. It's a big swing but one Fannie backs up with research and data to justify. Having worked at Fannie Mae as the Director of its Seattle Affordable Housing Partnership Office in the 1990s, I know first-hand that Fannie doesn't make any major move without dissecting it from every angle. In fact, Fannie analyzed more than a million appraisals using image recognition technology to compare appraisal reports to interior photos of comparables to determine condition ratings. What Fannie discovered was that computer vision technology was able to identify appraisal defects with 98% accuracy. More importantly, the discovered CV found "many defects that were previously impossible" for it to detect. That translates into incorrect condition ratings leading to missing or faulty adjustments to comparable sales, resulting in unsupported, inaccurate appraisals. With the GSE moves, mortgage lenders and appraisal firms are looking to CV for GSE compliance. Real estate's computer vision leader, Restb.ai, is already offering mortgage originators and appraisal management companies (AMCs) a GSE-compliant image validation solution with its computer vision technology. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! Finally, what most people don't realize is Fannie Mae is a technology company. It has been for the last couple of decades. The majority of its ~8,000 employees work in its technology group. As it moves to solidify AI in real estate, the industry will follow. This is just the beginning. Claude.ai is getting better – much better When we first used Claude.ai, it quickly became our No. 2 choice. But it was a distant second to ChatGPT-4. It has closed that gap. We'll dive deeper into Claude vs. ChatGPT in a future issue, but there are some things that Claude does better than ChatGPT and vice-versa. One example, for now at least: Claude can consume a much larger word count of content and is wickedly good at summarizing that content. The betterment of Claude is so striking we signed up for the Pro version – the same price as ChatGPT at $20 a month plus tax. We can see why Google recently invested $2 billion more in this AI tech! AI Five Fast Facts The market size of artificial intelligence is projected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.3% between 2023 to 2030. About 97 million individuals will be working in the AI space by 2025. AI is considered a top priority in business plans by 85% of companies. Globally, 38% of consumers prefer to utilize chatbots. 47% of enterprises have established AI strategies for smartphones. Source: What's the big data AI Headlines Take 5 1. Has Great Potential! Meet Your A.I. Realtor | The New Yorker - 11/27/23The Maya Chatbot uses real estate data to answer home buying questions. 2. Generative AI can change real estate, but the industry must change to reap the benefits | McKinsey & Company - 11/14/23A fantastic deep dive into how multiple real estate sectors can benefit from AI. 3. PropTech Today – Balancing AI innovation with the human touch | EstateAgentToday - 11/29/23Remember "high-tech, high touch?" Rinse and repeat. 4. AI brings transparency to farmland values | Successful Farming - 11/27/23An ag real estate agent in Iowa uses AI to improve farmland valuations. 5. How AI can address the skills gap in CRE | Altus Group - 11/29/23Commercial real estate is looking for new ways to leverage AI. Quote of the week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Real AI: AI and driverless cars (or not), AI fast facts and top AI headlines
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. AI and driverless cars: Is AI failing the trust test? Cruise, the autonomous taxi firm backed by GM, is in trouble, The Hustle reports. This is despite the announcement by GM a couple of weeks ago that it is partnering with Honda to launch its robotaxi service in Japan by 2026. Cruise also plans to expand into 12 more US markets. Real estate agents have been hopeful that driverless cars could someday handle open house tours and buyer showings. Based on various media reports, those days seem much farther in the future. In GM's recent news release announcing the Japan expansion, the first sentence says, "We're marching toward a future with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion." Zero crashes? The Hustle shares these numbers and reports: Cruise was involved in 261 incidents from April 2022 to April 2023. Waymo, another autonomous taxi firm and sister company to Google, recorded 85 incidents. As many as a dozen Cruise cars stalled and blocked San Francisco streets during a music festival. Another Cruise robotaxi got stuck in wet concrete driving on Golden Gate Avenue in April. One Cruise collided with a fire truck on its way to an emergency. 20 feet: that's the distance when on Oct 2, a Cruise robotaxi dragged a pedestrian that was flung into its path by a hit-and-run driver before it was able to stop entirely. California now has demanded Cruise slash its fleet by 50%. The California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise's driverless vehicle license, grounding all of its robotaxis on Oct 24. On Wednesday, Cruise recalled all 950 of its cars. This autonomous saga is likely to continue. When AI works great, it can be astounding. When it fails, it can potentially be catastrophic. The most significant impact overall is pushing out AI before it is completely baked, which erodes public trust. Just ask a real estate agent or broker how vital trust is. Footnote: The Seattle World's Fair in 1962 boasted predictions that were "certain to be realities by 2001," including flying cars. We're clearly having crucial challenges with self-driving vehicles, much less flying ones. Maybe AI will succeed with eVTOLs (Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing) where it hasn't – at least yet – with autonomous cars. At least that would cut the commute time for a buyer touring homes. AI Five Fast Facts Half of US adults are concerned about AI taking their jobs or the jobs of people they rely on. More than half (53%) of women stated they would not let their kids use AI compared to just over one-fourth (26%) of men. Only one in four Americans said AI will improve their lives. 64% of Americans believe that there should be disclosure when AI is used in professional spaces, lower than the 78% who say that the same disclosure should be applied to AI-created political ads. About two in three US adults said they are concerned that other countries will use AI to gain a competitive advantage in technological advancements over the United States. Source: Axios AI Headlines Take 10 1. Does your business need a chief AI officer? | ZDNET - 11/8/23Companies are adopting a new position for overseeing the adoption and deployment of AI. Does it pay in the mid-sixes? 2. 5 Strategies to Protect Your Company's Customer Service from AI Pitfalls | Entrepreneur - 11/2/23Understanding AI, recognizing the limits of AI tools, and calibrating your brand to harness AI to the fullest. 3. Love it or Leave it? Study Shows How People Perceive AI-created Content | Medium - 10/9/23Human favoritism does not equal AI aversion: a must-read for content creators leveraging AI. 4. Put these 5 AI tools to work for your content marketing in 2024 | Inman - 11/1/23Opusclip, Descript.com, Adobe Firefly, Remini, and Designrr (not a typo, yes, "rr"): recommended by self-described "AI Efficiency Coach" Phil Stringer, whose too-dark Insta photo needs AI help. 5. The ups and downs of leveraging AI in real estate | Palo Alto Online - 11/8/23Silicon Valley Assoc. of Realtors leans into the topic, but not very deeply. 6. Business leaders share their best practices when implementing AI | Fortune - 11/8/23AI adoption has doubled in the last five years, but companies struggle to leverage it, remaining in the baby steps phase. 7. Why self-regulation is best for artificial intelligence | The Hill - 11/8/23Swift responsiveness, cost-effectiveness, and trust through transparency are some of the perks of regulating your own AI. 8. How to detect real estate fraud: All you need to know | Comply Advantage Blog - 11/2/23While this is a security firm's blog post, it's an excellent recap of all kinds of fraud, ending with specifics on how AI can help detect it. 9. 'Power of AI': Use cases, security business implications | Comply Advantage Blog - 11/8/23Security company leaders gather to discuss AI's current and future influence in the security space. 10. Neural Networks Could Soon Bring Smartphone Photos to the Next Level | ExtremeTech - 11/6/23Glass Imaging explains how its AI tool is the next big thing in mobile photo-taking. Quote of the week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Our Top 10 Most-Read Articles of October: Scary Listing Photos, Client Retention, Decor Trends and More
Last month featured some spooky content, as our #1 most-read article of October attests to. But preventing past clients from ghosting was even more on the mind of agents and brokers last month. Articles #3 and #5 are from last month's Tips & Tricks Tuesday theme, "Never Lose Another Client." Never losing another transaction was also a top post — see our #2 article on contract cancellations. Want something lighter? Scroll down for quick reads on renovations (#7) and home decor trends (#10). 1. 13 Scary Listing Photos that Will Horrify BuyersSeeking something scary this Halloween? Look no further than this collection of listing photos. In the spirit of ghoulies and ghosties, and all things that go bump! in the night, here are 13 scary listing photos that will frighten prospects away faster than you can say boo! 2. Contract Cancellation: How to Prevent It From Happening to YouThe current market is seeing a record number of contract cancellations. Finding clients who are ready to transact is already hard enough in this market. Seeing a transaction through nearly to the end just for it to be canceled can be downright devastating. So what's an agent to do? 3. 3 Ways to Create Forever Clients Using Your Real Estate CRMCountless real estate agents lose business because people in their sphere 1) assumed the agent was too busy because they never reached out, or 2) didn't think of the agent first because they didn't communicate as consistently as the agent who reached out regularly and provided valuable information. To build a robust database that supports your business for years to come, here are three ways to strategically strengthen client relationships. 4. 5 Emerging Technologies That Will Redefine Real EstateEmerging technologies are already impacting how real estate professionals can complete daily tasks faster. From automation to computer vision, these game-changing technologies are unlocking new ways to accelerate the day-to-day productivity of real estate professionals. Here are five emerging technologies that are starting to reshape how to attract, engage, and maintain clients. 5. 6 Ways Digital Home Management Platforms Help Agents Keep Clients ForeverThe real estate industry naturally focuses on finding active buyers and active sellers. But what do agents, brokerages, and the industry do to help the other 115 million homeowners who either recently completed a transaction or are happy in their current home? Learn how digital home management platforms help homeowners manage their home while providing agents and brokers with a way to never lose them. 6. 4 Interesting Ways Top Producers Use Their CRMS (That You Might Not Be Doing)Most agents use some kind of a CRM. Even though agents know that they should be leveraging these tools to help them generate more business (and more income), many of them seem to be doing so... somewhat halfheartedly. But agents who produce more are using their CRMs a little bit differently than agents who produce less. Here are some ways you might consider tweaking your own CRM use in order to join that top echelon of sellers. 7. The ROI of Renovations: Explaining the Financial Potential of Renovating Before SellingLow listing inventory is a common challenge that agents are facing in 2023, and one big reason is because homeowners who live in properties that could use a little TLC before going to market are unable to fund those renovations. It's hard for a homeowner to list their most valuable asset knowing that they could be asking for more money if they made a few small changes upfront! Presale renovations are one way that homeowners can realize the full potential of their home's value without having to pay out-of-pocket for the upgrades. Find out how to discuss presale renovations with potential sellers. 8. RPR Mobile: Why It's the Must-Have App for REALTORSThe RPR app is akin to carrying around the entire RPR website in your pocket or purse: it's jam packed with property data, reports and tools. With it, agents are as equally productive as when they're in the office at their desktop. This article highlights all the tangible features and capabilities of real estate's most powerful app — and puts a spotlight on all the intangibles that make it an indispensable tool. 9. How Often Are Agents Alone With Prospects? (And How Dangerous Is That, Really?)Working as a real estate agent is perfectly safe most of the time. When it's unsafe, however, it's usually due to the fact that agents meet frequently with people they don't know very well at private home showings or open houses, which can put them at risk. A recent agent safety study asked agents how often they are alone with prospects and what steps they take to keep themselves safe at work. Here are some of the findings around agent interaction with their clients. 10. Home Trends: What's In (and Out) for 2024Get ready, #hometok. Zillow is unveiling its data-driven predictions for the features and design elements poised to transform homes and dominate social media feeds in 2024. From the raw appeal of brutalist design (concrete floors, anyone?) to the delicate artistry of Murano glass chandeliers, these emerging home trends highlight new post-pandemic pastimes and a nostalgia for the design of decades past.

Real AI: Wearable AI, Canva Masters Image Generation, and 5 New AI Facts
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. AI you can wear AI is likely to dominate your holiday shopping — and not just providing you scary-accurate recommendations on Amazon. A blitz of AI wearables is underway, according to news site Axios. Here are just a few early notables: Smart Glasses: Ray-Ban and Meta have teamed up with a new line of smart glasses. Talk about its potential for open house security. They look just like regular Ray-Bans, but include a built-in, ultra-wide 12 MP camera, a five-mic system, and open-ear speakers that they tout are comparable to top line earbuds. Say "Hey Meta" for instant answers because it's paired with your smartphone and is 100% voice command. You could stream your open house on Facebook Live. It's almost like wearing an undetectable body cam. Preorders ship on Oct 23. AI Pin: Startup Humane, led by former Apple star Imran Chaudhri, the AI Pin just debuted on a Paris runway. It has not been demoed publicly, yet reportedly it is a wearable screenless device that "uses a projector to allow its simple user interface to appear on a hand or other nearby surface." Rewind Pendant: For $59, Rewind.ai is offering a neck pendant that can record conversations and transfer them to your smartphone. The AI trick: its software can sort through and extract insights from all that audio you record, creating a sort of searchable database of information obtained from the audio content. Sounds like an agent would never have to take notes again. Tab: Billed as "it's always listening," Tab is a smart wearable that documents all your conversations "ingesting the context" of your life, according to founder Avi Shiffmann. But you won't find this gift wrapped this holiday, as it is not due to release until Spring 2024. Schiffmann told Axios, "Talking to Tab feels like a late-night conversation with a friend… It's a much more natural way of interacting with tech." Is it just me or do these sound like something created by Q in a James Bond movie, just less deadly? Canva offers AI for everyone else Ask every teacher you know if they use Canva, the online alternative to Photoshop, and you will rarely hear a "No." Canva became the ubiquitous online design site by offering its service free to educators for years. It used to be a pretty good tool. Now it just rang the awesome bell. I've used it for quick projects for a long time, but I'm about to become a subscriber because of its new AI integration. The ease of using AI to create incredible images is stunning. It offers not just one but access to three leading tools: Magic Media, DALL-E (soon to be incorporated into its sister product, ChatGPT), and Imagen by Google Cloud. Canva had me at Media Magic. Canva currently is providing a link to test its AI Image Generator for free here. I'll probably write more later about Canva because I think every agent in the world should now subscribe, but look what it did with this prompt (I live on Bainbridge Island in Washington outside of Seattle): "A Bainbridge Island home, classic two story with a two-car garage American Craftsman style white wood panel siding with a standard shingle roof." The center photo is the output: Think royalty-free stock photos. Again, free. The results are SO much better than what I have obtained from dozens of tests with DALL-E 3. Think of the marketing possibilities using a royalty free photo like this. No angry clients calling you to ask who gave you permission to include a photo of their home inside your promotional brochure. I sent this photo to a friend, Jason Shutt, a top broker at Windermere on Bainbridge, and his reaction was classic: "The grass growing in between the spacing in the concrete on the driveway!!!" Yep, just like my Bainbridge home. Do not underestimate the power of AI. AI Five Fast Facts More than 80% of U.S. adults say the industry should invest more to ensure that AI will be applied fairly, safely, and securely. That's an 11-point jump since November 2022. Most U.S. adults express reservations about AI for uses such as government benefits and healthcare. Only 39% believe AI is safe and secure, and 78% worry that AI can be used for malicious intent. More than 85% of U.S. adults surveyed believe making AI safe and secure for the public should be a nationwide effort across government, industry, and academia. There is a generational divide on AI's benefits vs. concerns. Over 57% of Gen Zers and 62% of millennials are excited about AI's potential benefits. In contrast, 70% of baby boomers are concerned about the potential risks of AI. More than half of employed U.S. adults show concern about AI replacing them on the job. Source: MITRE and Harris Poll, July 2023 AI Headlines: Take 5 Tom Hanks Warns Fans About 'AI Version of Me' Promoting Dental Plan: 'I Have Nothing to Do With It' | Variety - 10/1/23Tom Hanks is not asking you to get your teeth cleaned. That's an unauthorized AI version of Hanks, according to the real Tom Hanks. We think. AI takes Manhattan: The robot realtors of NYC are here to stay | New York Post - 9/29/23AI assistants are helping New Yorkers find their dream homes. Kinda. Architects vs AI: the battle for the future starts now | BIMplus - 10/3/23Architects and architecture professors address their feelings on AI. Conflicted. Meta is paying celebrities millions for AI Chatbots | The Information - 10/5/23A new way to get paid: the Facebook and Instagram parent is paying Tom Brady, Snoop Dogg, Charli D'Amelio, and others to create AI fictional characters with their likeness. "Hey Tom…" Seattle-based photo giant Getty Images embraces AI technology | Seattle Times - 10/2/23The company is taking a two-pronged approach to the threat and opportunity that AI poses to its business. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Quote of the Week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Real AI: Legal Minefield, 5 Facts and AI Meme of the Week
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. AI is creating a legal minefield While the federal government and dozens of states scurry to create AI legislation, AI cases are already filling our courts. Among the most notable lawsuits: Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI are being sued for allegedly violating copyright law by reproducing open-source code using AI. Visual artists in a proposed class-action lawsuit are suing artificial intelligence image firms, as is Getty Images. Celebrities are getting into the act. Not only did the recently settled Hollywood writers' strike include provisions to protect writers from AI, but individual celebrities are suing. Comedian and author Sara Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta, claiming copyright infringement, along with book authors Paul Tremblay, Mona Awad, Chris Golden, and Richard Kadrey. Recently, best-selling authors John Grisham and Jodi Picoult, along with Jonathan Franzen and Elin Hilderbrand, joined the legal battle against OpenAI. The minefield analogy is real. In March, the US Copyright Office said that works created using artificial intelligence may be copyrighted, provided the work meets a "human authorship requirement." However, in August, a US federal judge said AI-generated artwork can't be copyrighted. So, which is it? As the Verge recently observed, "Nobody really knows how things will shake out around US copyright law and artificial intelligence." While copyright infringement cases comprise the bulk of the current lawsuits, patent suits also are expected, as the court needs to consider, as the New York Times headline asks, "Can AI Invent?" AI Five Fast Facts This year, nearly 200 AI-related bills have been introduced nationwide in state legislatures – four times more than in all of 2022. Legislators in 31 states have introduced 191 bills related to artificial intelligence. However, only 14 became law. Bills restricting deepfakes are the most popular and the most likely to be passed: six of 37 bills were passed. A new North Dakota law defines a person as an individual, organization, government, political subdivision, or government agency or instrumentality. It specifies that the term does not include environmental elements, artificial intelligence, an animal, or an inanimate object. The FTC required Weight Watchers to delete the AI algorithm it developed for its weight-loss app. The FTC said that Weight Watchers marketed its app to children under 13 without parental consent. AI headlines: Take 10 How ChatGPT Can Help You Do More With PDFs | Wired - 9/24/23New ChatGPT plugins can read PDFs, helping you search and summarize PDF content. Real Estate's Hidden AI Revolution | NFX - 9/21/23Peter Flint, founder of Trulia, gives his take on AI, but hidden AI is all over real estate. ChatGPT update enables its AI to "see, hear, and speak," according to OpenAI | arsTechnica - 9/25/23Paid subscribers will soon be able to talk to a ChatGPT than can hear, speak, and see. ChatGPT users can now browse internet, OpenAI says | Reuters - 9/27/23The only problem is that ChatGPT uses Bing, and at rollout, the results are not very good. Introducing New AI Experiences Across Our Family of Apps and Devices | Meta - 9/27/23Facebook introduces a plethora of new AI tools to boost engagement (and its ad revenue). Amazon pours up to $4B into AI startup Anthropic, escalating rivalry with Microsoft and Google | GeekWire - 9/25/23Amazon accelerates its AI push, aiming to become a major player instead of a lagger. Supercharge Your Next Marketing Campaign: 5 Unconventional Prompts For ChatGPT | Forbes - 9/26/23Here are five unique prompts you can send to ChatGPT to boost your marketing campaigns. How AI Assistants Will Transform Real Estate Investing | IoT For All - 9/22/23AI can help real estate investors analyze real-time data and much more. Spotify is going to clone podcasters' voices — and translate them to other languages | The Verge - 9/25/23Spotify and OpenAI partnering will offer a new AI-powered voice translation feature for creating foreign-language versions of your favorite podcasts. YouTube unveils a plethora of new AI-powered tools for creators | CNN - 9/21/23Real estate agents can use new tools to simplify making videos and reach more people. Meme of the week Quote of the week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Real AI: Green Catch-22, AI Webinar, and The Creator (Ugh)
Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate. AI and the Green Catch-22 Among the biggest risks that AI faces on its trajectory to impact nearly every aspect of our daily lives before we know it is the Green Catch-22. The paradox: On the positive side, AI has the potential to tackle the environmental impact of humans, from dramatically improving energy efficiency and reducing waste to increasing farming yields and reversing the effects of climate change. Startups are beginning to proliferate, as this Google Blog provides a few examples. On the negative side is the impact of AI on Mother Earth itself. Training a single AI system can emit over 250,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. Experts estimate that using AI tech across all sectors already produces carbon emissions comparable to the entire aviation industry. Just as concerning is AI water consumption. Google's global data centers guzzled 15 billion gallons of water in 2022. Microsoft's global water consumption jumped 34% from 2021 to 2022 to almost 1.7 billion gallons. That's the equivalent of 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Researchers attribute the spike to its AI research. It doesn't sound like a lot, but a system like ChatGPT consumes about 500 milliliters of water for every dozen or so prompts. For some, the cost is already hitting home. ChatGPT has data centers in Iowa. It should not be surprising that the Des Moines Water Works saw a nearly 80% increase in residential rates since 2007, reaching $5.19 per 1,000 gallons for city residents. Just like the job paradox of AI – supporters argue AI will create more and better jobs than it eliminates – the Green Catch-22 for AI is real. So, it's not just Singularity we have to worry about when it comes to the advancement of AI. Webinar: Unveiling the Future: AI Revolution for MLSs and their users – Sept 19 RE Technology is hosting a webinar with Liz Sturrock, Chief of MLS Innovation at Miami Realtors. I recently met Liz at the Florida Realtors convention after I presented to the Emerging Technology Committee. This webinar should be a blast as Liz will talk about some of the real stuff in the MLS landscape today, not just what's coming (which is also exciting but not as actionable). For MLS staff and execs, this is a terrific opportunity to learn and ask questions about the practical applications of AI by MLS and how to best serve – and educate – members. A no-cost webinar, the registration link is here. Headlines: AI Take 5 These Prisoners Are Training AI | Wired - 9/11/23Finland's AI firm Metroc is paying prisoners $1.67 per hour to train its large language model. Chuck Schumer says he asked Musk, Gates and others about whether to regulate AI: ‘Every single person raised their hands' | Fortune - 9/13/23And so it begins, as legislatures play catch-up to try and regulate advanced tech once again. Just think about how successful they have been with social media. Amazon launches generative AI to help sellers write product descriptions | About Amazon - 9/13/23Like the real estate property descriptions that Restb.ai creates using computer vision, Amazon offers ChatGPT-like help for seller product descriptions. TurboTax-maker Intuit offers an AI agent that provides financial tips | Ars Technica - 9/6/23Using a large language model platform called GenOS, TurboTax users can now access a new AI assistant. It's expected to roll out to other Intuit properties, including Credit Karma, Quickbooks, and Mailchimp. Here's where the top startup investors are placing their bets | Albany Inno - 9/7/23Perhaps not surprisingly, artificial intelligence and machine learning investments lead the way in total deal value, with top investors pumping $646 million into the sector last quarter. E-commerce was second on the list in terms of deal value. Bonus: The Creator | YouTube trailer - Released 9/29/23Hollywood's dystopian view of what happens when Singularity is achieved. Quote of the Week To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Our Top 10 Most-Read Articles of July
What were agents and brokers reading on RE Technology last month? Let's take a look at our most popular articles to find out. July saw a few debuts: the launch of Threads, Meta's new Twitter competitor (see article #8 below) and the release of NAR's 2023 Member Profile (see article #3). More importantly (to us, anyway), July was the inaugural month of RE Technology's new weekly feature, Tips & Tricks Tuesday, which offers weekly articles around a monthly theme. July's theme was "How to Make More Money with Your Mobile Phone." Check out articles #2 and #9 to see the most-read articles from this new series. Like last month, our readers again devoured ChatGPT-focused articles. See articles #1, #4 and #7 for the goods. To discover more of July's most-read articles, see the full list below: 1. Using ChatGPT Is Probably an MLS ViolationI imagine that by now, you have tried ChatGPT. It's a really cool application that takes prompts from the user and generates something else. For example, you can tell it to write a property description and give it some information about the subject property. The problem is that when ChatGPT writes something, you are not the author. Since you are not the author, you do not own the copyright. 2. 25 Text Messages You Should Send Right NowTexting is one of the most effective marketing channels available and is easy to start using. To help you, we've created 25 take-and-bake message templates you can use today. These templates cover various scenarios, from lead generation and follow-ups to appointment reminders and closing deals. Feel free to customize them to fit your personal style and business needs. 3. NAR Releases 2023 Member ProfileAmid a significant shortage of housing supply in 2022, 32% of Realtors® named a lack of inventory as the most important factor limiting potential clients from making a purchase, according to the National Association of Realtors®' 2023 Member Profile. This annual report analyzes members' business activity and demographics from the prior year. 4. ChatGPT Hacks for Real Estate AgentsRest assured, ChatGPT isn't here to take your job. Real estate is a people-first, human-centric industry — a robot simply cannot replace the uniqueness and depth of skill and expertise you bring to the table. Thankfully, you can use the increasingly popular chatbot as a tool to support you. Here are some smart ways to partner up with ChatGPT to make your work life easier. 5. 5 Common Tech Mistakes Real Estate Agents Should AvoidToday more than ever, real estate agents rely heavily on technology to engage their clients and streamline their workflow, which helps deliver exceptional services to clients. However, even the most tech-savvy agents can fall victim to common mistakes that hinder their productivity and success. How can agents ensure their tech stays in tip-top shape? Here are five common mistakes to avoid. 6. Friday Freebie: The Power of Google and Your Online ReputationHow easily can real estate leads find you — and when they do find you, what kind of impression awaits them? If your online presence needs a boost or a little polish, never fear! In this Friday Freebie, we're highlighting a free on-demand webinar from NAR that will help you learn everything you need to know about taking your internet presence to the next level. 7. Influencer Approved: 6 Game-Changing ChatGPT Prompts for REALTORSOne tool that has been making waves in the real estate industry is ChatGPT. This article presents you with six game-changing ChatGPT prompts specifically tailored for REALTORS. These prompts have been handpicked and approved by influential real estate industry voices who recognize ChatGPT's potential to enhance communication, generate leads, and provide valuable insights to clients. 8. Meta Launches Threads, a New Social Media PlatformMeta, formerly known as Facebook, has once again made waves in the tech industry with the launch of their innovative social media app called Threads. This new offering from Meta aims to revolutionize the way we connect and share with friends, setting it apart from other major social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and LinkedIn. 9. 52 Resources for Making Money with Your PhoneReal estate agents are always happy to hear about ways to make more money — and in the current tough market, we could all use as much help as we can get. Learn about 52 resources — apps, tips, optimization tricks, and more — agents can tap into to make more money with the help of their smartphone. 10. Instagram Filters and Tools: How to Use Them in Your Real Estate MarketingIt's hard to think of Instagram without thinking of the word "filters." While the use of filters is commonly associated with selfies, filters can be used to beautify all types of photos — including real estate photos. Here's a list of popular Instagram post filters and editing tools, and how you can use them to enhance your photos.

Our Top 10 Most-Read Articles of May
ChatGPT. People can't stop talking about it (and to it) — and apparently RE Technology subscribers can't stop reading about it, either. Three articles on the subject made our list of the most popular articles of May. Check them out at articles #1, #2, and #9 below. RPR made a big splash last month, as well, with their release of Shareable Market Trends, which lets users easily share beautiful chart and graphs across social media and beyond. To learn more about this new feature, see article #3. To master this new feature, turn to article #10 to get a set of free eBooks on creative ways to use Shareable Market Trends in your business. What else were agents and brokers reading last month? Check out the full list below to find out! 1. 8 Browser Extensions for ChatGPTChatGPT is here to stay. However, for now, it's penned up in its environment on OpenAI, and anytime you want to use it, you have to schlep on over there. That's why we've rounded up this list of ChatGPT browser extensions. They bring the power of ChatGPT directly into Gmail and social media, summarize web pages and videos, and so much more. 2. 23 Ways to Use ChatGPT in Your Real Estate BusinessThese days, it seems that you can't escape news about everyone's favorite AI tool, ChatGPT. In fact, in May, both Redfin and Zillow announced that they have added ChatGPT capabilities. But what Chat GPT can do for you, a real estate agent? In this video, Jimmy Burgess offers 23 ways that agents can use ChatGPT, including prompts to help you get the most out of this tool. 3. RPR Launches Hyper-Local Shareable Market TrendsRPR has unveiled one of its most exciting features ever: Shareable Market Trends! With this powerful tool, REALTORS® can now easily share up-to-date, hyper-local market trends and housing stats like never before. Just a few clicks or taps from the website or RPR mobile app and you'll be sharing across all your favorite social media platforms and marketing touchpoints. 4. How to Identify Red Flags on Rental ApplicationsThe internet is filled with stories of unpaid rent, damaged apartments, unreasonable tenants, scams, and unpaid utilities and charges. No landlord or property manager wants to rent to this kind of horror-story tenant. Protect yourself from getting into a contract with this type of person by avoiding these red flags on rental applications. 5. Top 5 Things Home Sellers Expect from Their Real Estate AgentSilence is golden, but when it comes to real estate, you are expected to be anything but quiet. Every seller wants to hear the details of how you will get their property sold. Are you offering everything you can to help your listings speak loud and clear? Here are the five most important must-haves that are now the norm in real estate marketing. 6. The 7 Deadly Sins of Facebook AdsResults from your Facebook ads not living up to your expectations? Instead of looking at what you should be doing — most of which you probably already know — let's look at what you shouldn't be doing. 7. 9 Real Estate Marketing Ideas for MayWe're back again with another round-up of monthly marketing ideas. The weather's warming up, the barbeques are firing up, and there's no better time to power up your business by getting your name and business out there! Dive right in with these nine real estate marketing ideas for May. 8. 23 Ways Your Seller Benefits When Using a Pre-sale Renovation FirmDespite higher mortgage rates, the lack of inventory in many markets has kept competition for new listings fierce. However, savvy agents know that having a conversation with every potential seller about using a pre-sale renovation firm can boost their success rate. Here's a comprehensive list of 23 distinct benefits sellers can reap when collaborating with a pre-sale renovation firm. 9. To AI or Not to AI: What are the risks and rewards?For real estate agents, the question is no longer whether to use AI but how to use it effectively and responsibly. But what are the risks and rewards of incorporating AI into your real estate business practices, communications, and marketing activities? Here are some examples and insights to help you make informed decisions about AI. 10. Friday Freebie: 'Master the Market' eBook Series Will Help You Master Your MarketingYour social media posts are about to get a lot more interesting! That's thanks to RPR's newly released Shareable Market Trends, a click-to-share feature that lets you quickly share charts and graphs to social media and your other marketing channels. This Friday Freebe highlights a series of free eBooks full of creative ways to use this new feature — and draw in leads with informative and attractive graphics.

Real Estate Phenomenon: Ben Caballero sets new $3 billion home sales record
Ben Caballero, the No. 1-ranked real estate agent in the U.S. since 2013 by RealTrends and a three-time Guinness World Record title holder, has set another extraordinary milestone. In 2022, Caballero individually sold an unprecedented $3 billion in home sales. As the CEO and Founder of HomesUSA.com, Caballero is a new home sales expert who works directly with 60-plus builders in Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Austin, and San Antonio. He is the current Guinness Worlds Record title holder for "Most annual home sales transactions through MLS by an individual sell side real estate agent – current." Caballero's journey to this extraordinary achievement began in 2015 when he became the first real estate agent to exceed $1 billion in total home sales. He then went on to break the $2 billion mark in a single year, not once but three times in 2018, 2019, and 2020. With his 2022 sale volume of $3,060,878,784 billion, Caballero raises the bar again and continues to hold the record for the highest annual home sales by an individual agent. Ben Caballero first earned the Guinness World Record holder title for 2016 with 3,556 verified home sales. He set a new record in 2018 with 5,801 home sales and again in 2020 with 6,438 home sales, amounting to more than $2.46 billion in sales volume. In 2022, his total homes sales included 6178 transaction sides. Reflecting on his extraordinary accomplishment, Caballero said, "If you had told me I would break the $3 billion sales barrier at the beginning of last year, I would not have believed you. Until mid-spring, 2022 started very slowly because builders were selling homes from a waiting list so fast that many new homes were sold before they could be listed on the MLS," he explained. But Caballero said higher priced homes combined with a market shift caused new home sales to accelerate throughout the markets he serves in Texas. "The best new home market in the U.S. is Texas and continues to be Texas. So, becoming a Texan is arguably the best business decision I ever made," he added. Recognized as the world's most productive real estate agent, Caballero has sold more homes than any other individual or team annually since 2016, as reported by leading industry research. From 2004 to 2022, he amassed over 54,000 home sales, totaling more than $20 billion in volume. Caballero's new record translates to an astonishing $8.39 million worth of home sales per day. He averages nearly 17 home sales every single day of the year. Caballero, an innovative trailblazer in the industry, developed HomesUSA.com's proprietary SaaS listings management and marketing platform to optimize efficiency for his production builder clients. He attributes his record-setting production to this cutting-edge technology and is preparing to launch a new API-driven single-entry platform for production builders soon. Caballero became a broker at 21 and was a builder for 18 years. He launched his SaaS and cloud-based platform in 2007.

Our Top 10 Most-Read Articles of February
The future is already here, and today's real estate professionals are learning what impact advanced technologies, like artificial intelligence, will have on their business. That's a topic that was on the minds of our readers in February, if our monthly most-read articles list is anything to go by. Last month, RE Technology readers devoured articles on ChatGPT (article #2) and facial recognition software (#10). Our readers also dove into articles about using Google Sheets for lead capture (#5), 50 ways to use NAR's free-to-Realtors program RPR (#9), and a tech checklist for your open houses (#6). What else were agents and brokers reading last month? Check out our full list on February's top 10 articles below to find out. 1. Top 10 Mobile Apps for Real Estate AgentsIs your phone dialed in to the latest and greatest digital applications? Good real estate apps can help agents edit videos and photographs, schedule and track social media, increase efficiency, manage projects and expenses, keep tabs on industry trends, maintain their CRM – and the list goes on. Here's RPR's recommendation for 10 solid apps to download and try for 2023: 2. How Real Estate Agents Can Use ChatGPTReal estate agents are always looking for ways to improve their business and stay ahead of the competition. One tool that can help them do this is ChatGPT, a machine learning model that uses deep learning techniques to generate human-like text. Learn how real estate agents can use ChatGPT and the benefits it has for their business. Read on to find out more! 3. The Real Estate Niche with Big Profit PotentialDo you serve a real estate niche? Focusing on a specific niche makes it easier to brand your business and stand out from competing agents who have a more generalized real estate practice. Realtor Jaime Resendiz explains why new construction/new home sales may be the way to go for pure profitability. 4. 4 Pre-listing Steps to Boost Your Commission and Add Value to Your ClientsWhen you're focused on adding value for your clients, increased and more steady commissions naturally follow. While some pre-listing tasks are the same in any housing market, you may need to tweak your planning as the market in your area shifts. Here are four things to do before you list a home. 5. Google Sheets + Your CRM = Open House Dream TeamDid you know you can use Google Sheets for lead capture? It's true—rather than paying for open house apps or building lead capture pages, you can simply use this free tool as an easy way to capture leads. Learn how to set up a Google Sheets spreadsheet for this purpose AND how to connect it to your CRM. 6. What Should Your Open House Tech Checklist Contain? 9 Must-Do ItemsToday's open houses have come a long way and are powered by technology. As a result, real estate agents can leverage tech tools to better promote – and host – an open house. Agents also need to remember that many of today's homes boast an array of new tech of their own. That smart home tech can positively impact an open house, but you must be prepared. Here's your tech checklist for an open house. 7. Tools to Target Seller Leads and Listings in a Tight Inventory MarketDespite housing inventory rising year-over-year from 2022, real estate agents and teams across the country are still scrounging for new listings. So how can you make sure you're attracting seller leads and landing those listings instead of the competition? 8. How Hosting Community Events Can Help You Grow Your Business FASTWant to get more business without asking for business? It can be done, and the secret is in hosting community events. In fact, this method is so effective that California Realtor Dave Archuletta went from being a brand-new agent in 2020 to doing an estimated $80 million in volume in 2022. Here's how you can use this local events strategy to grow your business, too, and build trust in your community! 9. 50 Ways to Use RPR in Your Real Estate BusinessWhat exactly can RPR (Realtors Property Resource®) do your business? Consider this nifty-fifty list the ultimate answer! This list will provide an overview of the many ways REALTORS® are using RPR to better manage their real estate business, from prospecting to valuing properties, listing presentations, open houses, anniversary follow-ups, and more. 10. 4 Things Real Estate Agents Need to Know About Facial RecognitionFacial recognition technology, or FRT, is a type of biometric security based on a person's physical characteristics that act like a fingerprint or password alternative. Real estate agents can expect to encounter more uses of facial recognition technology that will impact their business or clients. Here are some of the pros and cons of FRT.

Our Top 10 Most-Read Articles of December
Happy New Year! Before we dive fully into a new year and a new decade, let's take a look at the month and year that just passed. As our regular readers likely know, each month we publish a list of our most read articles. But every December, we go one step further and count down our 10 most popular articles of the year. You can see the full list of our best articles of 2022 here. Below is our final monthly list of articles from 2022. Check out what your fellow agents and brokers were reading during the final days of the year just passed. 1. Friday Freebie: 42 Customizable Posts for Social MediaEver wish social media had an easy button? So do we. Social media has long been an effective place to generate leads, advertise listings and open houses, and to connect with consumers in your area. But it's not always easy to come up with effective post ideas. In this week's Friday Freebie, download a collection of 42 easy-to-edit social media graphics that will engage your community all year round. 2. 7 Staging Tips to Help Your Listings Sell FasterStaging a home for sale may require some extra pre-sale prep, but the time and money reap plenty of rewards. Nearly a quarter (23%) of buyers' and sellers' agents said that a staged home received an offer 1% to 5% higher than a similar home that hadn't been staged. While each home is different, these seven tips offer a starting point for every listing. 3. 2 Steps to a 2023 Social Media Plan You'll Actually UseWe want to make planning and executing a social media strategy for 2023 as simple as possible for you. So here are two easy steps and 100+ post ideas to help you do just that. 4. What's Coming for Open Houses? Predictions for 2023With 2023 around the corner, we are wondering again whether open houses will be the thing agents turn to with confidence. No matter what happens, though, one thing is for certain: Open houses will be different. Here's what we expect agents will see with open houses in the new year. 5. In a Slumping Market, These Buyers Could Find AdvantagesFor some buyers, the market is friendlier than it was months ago. Despite inflation, skyrocketing interest rates, and the threat of an impending recession, some homebuyers could benefit from the current state of the market. So, what types of buyers could find this market more accessible to purchasing a home? 6. Holiday Light Map Campaign: A Step-by-Step Guide to Seasonal Lead GenerationGive your seasonal marketing a bit of glitz and glimmer by highlighting holiday light displays in your area. This Facebook campaign idea can passively generate real estate leads for you all season long. All it takes is a little bit of set-up. 7. 5 Best Photo Tips for Real Estate AgentsMany agents believe their photography stacks up against their competition and remain committed to taking their own listing photos. If you are determined to take the do-it-yourself route for listing photos, here are five tips the experts recommended you need to know. 8. How to Use Real Estate Market Statistics to Attract Sellers and Win ListingsWe spend a lot of time talking about how to market to home buyers. But it's important to market to sellers too. And it's easy to do. Before making a decision, sellers should be familiar with the real estate market in their area. Here's how to use real estate market statistics to attract sellers and win listings. 9. How ChatGPT Can Help You Generate Real Estate Marketing IdeasRealtor Jaime Resendiz uses an AI bot known as ChatGPT to, well, chat and have a dialogue that results in all kinds of marketing ideas. He uses ChatGPT to come up with ideas (and some text) for social media, blogs, videos, ads, listing descriptions, and more. Learn how you can leverage ChatGPT in your business—and work smarter, not harder in 2023! 10. Get Great Real Estate Testimonials, Every Single Time (in 5 Simple Steps)You had a great working relationship with a past client, but unfortunately didn't have an opportunity to get a testimonial or online review from them. Now, a year and a half later, you're afraid it's too late. To help overcome this challenge, we'll answer two vital questions: 1) How do you continue a long-term relationship with a past client in a meaningful way? AND 2)How do you capture testimonials from clients you haven't spoken with in a while?

Our Top 10 Most-Read Articles of October
Agents and brokers must have had email on the brain last month, as two articles on the topic made it into our October list of RE Technology's most-read articles. See for yourself: check out article #1 for advice on juicing up your email signature, and article #3 for tips on Gmail features you may not know about. And — extra credit — hop on over to #9 for Chrome browser extensions (including one for Gmail) that will boost your productivity. Next, scroll on down to article #5 to get a jump on 2023 with a free business planning guide and workbook. Then see articles #4 and #6 for social media growth hacks and inspirational real estate influencers. What else were agents and brokers reading last month? Check out our full list of October's most popular articles below to find out! 1. What Should Be in a Realtor's Email Signature?Have you ever looked at another professional's email signature and cringed? Strong real estate signatures should be attention grabbing, while remaining professional. Also, leads should be able to easily access your website and contact information. Know which elements to include and how to format them with this short list of do's and don'ts. 2. Google Just Announced an Update About 'Helpful Content.' What Should Real Estate Agents Know?When Google updates its algorithm, the effects ripple through the internet. In September, another Google update went live. Agents who want to succeed online need to know how to adjust to what's being called the "helpful content" update. Here's what you need to know. 3. 7 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do with GmailGmail is great for sending, receiving and efficiently organizing email. But did you know that there's a ton of baked-in functionality that you may not have heard of? Watch this video to learn more about these hidden Gmail features and see simple tutorials for setting them up. 4. 12 Real Estate Influencers Who Built a Business on Social MediaYou can also use social media to build a niche and promote your brand. But social media also can be used to generate secondary income or spin off a new business. In this post, we'll review some real estate professionals using social media for this latter purpose. Here are 12 real estate influencers who built a business on social media. 5. Friday Freebie: 2023 Real Estate Business Plan + WorkbookThanks to market factors like high mortgage rates and buyer hesitancy, 2023 could be a tough year for real estate agents. But with the right planning, it doesn't have to be a tough year for YOU. Get a jump on your goal setting with this week's Friday Freebie — a real estate business plan for 2023 and a workbook that'll do all the necessary math for you (thank goodness, right?!). 6. #GrowthHack: The Types of Accounts You MUST Follow for Success on InstagramDid you know that there are certain types of Instagram accounts you should follow in order to game the algorithm, forge connections, and make your posts, Stories, and Reels more visible to your followers? In this video, the Broke Agent explains which types of accounts you should follow to maximize your Instagram success. 7. How to Pivot (Not Panic) in a Market ShiftRight now, everyone is talking about the shifting market and expressing concerns about a possible recession. But pivoting is not about stressing out. It's about rising to the occasion and taking on the challenge at hand. Here are four critical tips that can help you pivot in a market shift without the panic. 8. What Are the Best Ways to Increase the Value of Your Listing?Homeowners know the value of maintaining their homes, but when it comes time to sell a home, they may wonder, "What are the best ways to increase the value of my home?" As someone who has helped purchase, renovate, and resell more than 1,000 homes in Southern California as a successful flipper, here's what I've learned: the marketplace tells you what works and what does not. 9. 4 Chrome Extensions to Make Your Browser Work for YouDid you know that Google's Chrome browser offers thousands of extensions that you can install to boost your productivity? In this video, Realtor Loida Velasquez shares her four MUST-HAVE extensions for real estate. Learn how to put your web browser to work for you! 10. Facing the Future of the MLS Buyer Broker Commission LitigationIf you ask any attorney who is following the buyer commission lawsuits, the outlook is grim. MLSs that require a listing broker to provide a blanket, unilateral offer of compensation to buyer brokers in order to submit a listing to the MLS is likely to be rendered obsolete. Moreover, the case may require those commissions to be returned to home buyers. Imagining a future of the MLS without the offer of compensation should be the top issue discussed in MLS boardrooms today.

Our Top 10 Most Read Articles of September
Last month was a whirlwind for real estate agents, with homes selling faster in September than in August for the first time in four years. Meanwhile, home price growth is setting record highs, while inventory levels are dropping to new lows. That means fewer homes are on the market, but the commissions are more lucrative. In September, RE Technology readers dove into content that helped them get in on the action. Articles about how to convincingly communicate with seller leads (#1), understand what consumers are looking for (#5), upping your game with coaching (#7) all made the list of our most-read posts of the month. Realtors found time for fun, too, with articles about memes (#3) and real estate "porn" (#2) dominating the top of our list. And let's not forget the all-important safety tips for Realtor Safety Month. Check out article #9 for potentially live-saving safety advice you can rely on all year-round. For everything else, check out the full top 10 articles of September 2020 below: 1. Are You Unknowingly Encouraging Sellers to List as FSBOs?‍A recent Facebook post by a top-producing agent read: "I recommend that all sellers try for sale by owner." I couldn't believe it when I read it, so I read it twice. Yep, that's what it said alright. It just didn't use those words. 2. Real Estate Porn and Floor PlansThese days, it's all about real estate porn. Like almost every other adult I know, I am more than a little addicted to looking at other people's houses. Given the opportunity, I could easily burn a couple of hours dreaming about that NYC loft, that stone cottage, or that mid-mod houseboat, à la Sleepless in Seattle. 3. 16 of the Best Real Estate Memes of All Time‍Real estate agents and bloggers are no strangers to memes. There are so many facts (and often pet peeves) about the working life of an agent or a Realtor. To express them, only a meme can do justice. Let's review some of the best real estate memes of all time. 4. How to Take Professional Photos on Your iPhone or Android PhoneWant to market your property like a professional but can't find (or get access to) a good photographer? Or maybe you're simply looking for an innovative way to take real estate photos yourself and save a few dollars. Well, get excited because today, we're going to teach you how to shoot real estate like a professional using only your smartphone! *5. 3 Things Today's Consumers Expect from Real Estate Agents‍The type of qualities good agents bring to the table are just as valuable to clients today as they were 10 or 20 years ago. The only difference is how they prove these things to prospects. Here's a look at what consumers expect from real estate agents today—and how to ensure you're the one they chose to work with. 6. Friday Freebie: The 'Secret Sauce' to Online Lead GenerationAre your lead generation efforts leaving you hungry for better results? Maybe you're putting in too much work for too little reward, or maybe your campaigns just aren't coming together the way you envisioned. Whatever the case, we've got the recipe to spice up your sales funnel. 7. 5 of the Best Real Estate Coaches in the Business‍If you value continued education and training in the real estate field, coaching is one of your best avenues to attain that. Begin your journey of growing your business, and furthering your real estate knowledge today by considering one of these top coaches to guide you. 8. Video for Real Estate Agents: What to Do If You're Camera Shy‍Videos are great ways to connect with your audience, build trust, and establish a professional online presence. But, if you're camera shy, it can make it tough to create content. While you work on feeling more comfortable around the camera, don't lose out on business! Check out these video tips for real estate agents. 9. 5 Resources for Realtor Safety MonthReal estate agents face unique safety issues while performing their jobs. Meeting potential buyers, some of them unfamiliar, presents an inherent potential for danger. The real estate industry has taken steps to help emphasize safety and educate agents on ways they can create a work environment that's less threatening. Here are resources that can help. 10. 3 Easy Ways to Help Your Clients Get Comfortable with eSigningAs a real estate agent, how can you help clients who distrust technology during a time when technology is powering the real estate industry in all new ways? One of the easiest ways to help clients get more comfortable with technology is to explain the benefits of the technology to them or the WIFM: "What's in it for me?"

Top 10 Most Popular Articles of August
Real estate professionals are frequently the targets of sales pitches--to buy the latest app, software program, or marketing platform that will help them build their businesses. But you know what's refreshing? Things that are free. Judging by last month's top 10 articles list, it looks like plenty of you agree. In August, three of our top 10 articles highlighted free resources (articles #4, #8 and #10). Article #6 also listed several free sources of public real estate data, as well as a handful of paid data sources. What else were real estate agents and brokers reading last month? Check out our list of RE Technology's 10 most-read articles of August below! 1. Consumer Smart Locks vs. Electronic Lockboxes‍Consumer smart locks and electronic real estate lockboxes both allow access to a home. While these two products may seem similar, they're designed for two distinctly different uses. Let's examine how smart locks compare to electronic lockboxes in managing access for a home that's listed for sale. 2. Tips to Reduce Your Chances of Getting Sued as an Agent‍Lawsuits are a concern for many professionals, and real estate agents are no expectation. Lawsuits quickly become very costly, and even if you are found to have not committed any fault, they can still harm your business. So taking some tips to reduce your chances of getting sued as an agent could end up saving your reputation, as well as thousands of dollars. 3. Is Now a Good Time to List? 5 Reasons to Give Concerned SellersSelling a home has changed dramatically over the past few months. It's no longer as simple as signing documents and getting the space ready for a photographer to grab awesome photos. The question on every seller's mind is, "Should I sell my house right now?" The answer may surprise them. Now may actually be a great time to sell a residence and here are some of the reasons why. 4. Friday Freebie: Lead Generation and Marketing Budget Calculator ToolHas your real estate sales funnel been derailed by COVID-19? How about your budget? Everyone's been thrown a bit off by the pandemic, and most of us need to reevaluate the goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year. If you need help getting back on track, this week's Friday Freebie is for you! 5. How to Shoot Real Estate with Only an iPhone 11‍You really can shoot real estate using just the iPhone 11. This latest release from Apple features an awesome wide-angle lens that is simply insane and, when paired with the CameraPixels PRO app and HDR Image Enhancement, it can really help set your property marketing apart from the rest. 6. 17 of the Best Public Sources of Real Estate Data‍Real estate is one of the most data-consuming businesses in our world today. There are several public sources of real estate data in the US, most of which are free. These sources of data are essential to the success of real estate marketing and development strategies. Let's dive in. 7. 7 Huge Mistakes Real Estate Agents Make on YouTubeThere's no reason why real estate agents can't get a piece of the YouTube action to generate leads and position yourself as a thought leader. But don't post blindly. Get ready to harness the power of video and start using YouTube effectively with these best practices. 8. Social Media Marketing 101 Guide [FREE Download]‍Ever wonder what are the best days of the week and times of day to post on different social media channels? Looking for ideas about different types of content? This all-inclusive guide to all things "social media" answers these questions—and it also includes a four-month content marketing calendar to help you give your online marketing the kickstart it needs! 9. First-Time Homebuyers Are Dangerous: Fact or Fiction?Conversations in recent years have resulted in many agents believing the millennial generation is the first group to break the status quo of homeownership. Are you a real estate agent that feels as though first-time homebuyers are not worthwhile? 10. Friday Freebie: Virtual Staging + 4 Bonus Listing Photo EditsListing a looking little lackluster? Whether your latest listing is vacant or the outdated decor of the current owner isn't exactly drawing in the buyers, there's a quick and simple solution. Even better? It's wallet friendly.

Friday Freebie: 6 Downloadable Reports for Connecting with Prospects
While we all may be stuck socially distancing for a while, there's still ample opportunity to connect with real estate consumers. The trick? Offer something of value… like these six free reports. (And with legions of people stuck at home right now, there's no better time to offer good reading material.) Read on to find out how you can claim these brandable, downloadable reports for yourself! Download these 6 free reports, courtesy of ProspectsPLUS! Now's a great time to build up your database—and one of the best ways to do that is to offer something of value to online consumers. Just set up a landing page that offers to send one of these reports to consumers in exchange for their contact information. (And then be sure to add them to your CRM and to the appropriate drip marketing campaigns.) You can also mail the reports to consumers. In fact, ProspectsPLUS! even offers suggestions for mailing frequency and follow-up postcard campaigns for each report. And when things finally return to some semblance of normal, these reports make excellent printed pieces to distribute at open houses or leave behind after listing presentations. These reports come as downloadable PDFs and are easy to add your name and contact information to. They target a variety of audiences, too—sellers, expireds, FSBOs, cash buyers, and more. Here are the reports that ProspectsPLUS! is offering for FREE to RE Technology readers: How to CHOP $24,000 & 4 Years OFF Your Mortgage Merchandising Review BusinessBASE™ System for Building Your Book of Business For Sale By Owner First Aid Cash Buyer Checklist Five Keys to Selling Your Home Sooner Download these six reports now and start connecting with prospects today!

Ben Caballero Becomes the World's First $2-Billion Real Estate Agent
Ben Caballero, the first Guinness World Record holder for home sales, broke his world record for an individual real estate agent, selling 5,793 homes totaling $2,270,911,643 in a single year. That's according to data from local MLSs of the Houston Association of REALTORS, North Texas Real Estate Information Systems, San Antonio Board of REALTORS and the Austin Board of REALTORS.

Real Estate Agent Ben Caballero Named Guinness World Record Holder
Milestones. Every career has these extra special events. So what qualifies something for milestone status? I think it's when all you have to do is mention what you did and the immediate reaction from others is: "Wow." Lifelong Realtor Ben Caballero's career is filled with milestones. He has been the #1 ranked real estate agent in America by REAL Trends in both number of sales and dollar volume every year since 2013. His numbers are so astronomical they were eight times the #2 ranked agent for the most recent year reported. His production numbers also beat every team in the U.S. His home sale productions numbers have been so beyond human, one of his former marketing directors bought him a superhero cape.

Ben Caballero Becomes the First "Billion Dollar Agent"
America's number one Realtor® for the last four straight years – Ben Caballero, president of Texas-based HomesUSA.com – has become the first billion-dollar producer in the world for total home sales last year. Caballero personally was responsible for 2,491 home sales, totaling $1,022,000,000 in 2015. Uniquely, nearly all of his transactions were new home sales for more than 40 homebuilder brands that he represents throughout the Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin metro areas. Caballero's feat is the result of a highly inventive technology he developed: an online listing management platform that streamlines the MLS listing and marketing process for homebuilders, charging a flat-fee versus a sales commission. "HomesUSA.com allows the hands-on ability to update the information as often as needed or to change the status of the home listing the moment a sale occurs. This allows Toll Brothers to maintain a consistent and accurate level of home listing information among all inventory, a key factor for the success of Toll Brothers' available homes for sale in the state of Texas," said D'Anne Lancaster, Toll Brothers National Online Sales Concierge Manager. Caballero is expected to keep his top ranking when The Wall Street Journal and REAL Trends announce its new list of "The Thousand" top real estate producing agents in June. He has been the number one agent in the USA for the last four years, outranking all others on the list in two categories, (1) number of real estate sales transactions, and (2) cumulative transaction (dollar) volume, and he also is the only agent to surpass these same two categories for real estate teams. In 2014, Caballero registered 2,383 home sales representing $925 million in volume. The second-ranked agent had 463 sales, meaning Caballero sold five times as many homes as the second ranked U.S. agent. From 2010 to 2015, Caballero's total home sale volume tally is $4,503 billion. To put his 2015 new home sales numbers in perspective, Caballero sold an average of more than 47 homes per week, or more than one sale every business hour.

Top 10 Most Read Articles of March
I don't know what was in the air last month–a bit of spring fever, maybe–but our readership numbers blew the records of previous months away. Perhaps it was a bit of controversy that stirred the pot (see #3 below), or maybe agents and brokers are just ramping up for the upcoming selling season. Whatever the reason, we're happy that so many real estate professionals connected with the articles published on RE Technology in March. Below is a list of the 10 most popular. Use them to get primed for the busy sales season ahead. * * * 1. 7 Google Chrome Extensions for Real Estate AgentsWant to get more out of your online experience? Put your web browser to work for you! Google's Chrome browser offers thousands of extensions that you can install to boost your productivity. Like apps for your mobile phone, these add-ons range from social media sharing buttons to extensions that block online distractions so that you can better focus on important tasks. Ready to give your productivity a boost? These seven Chrome extensions can help turn you into a web power user! 2. 5 Basic Tips for Taking Great Photos With Your iPhoneManufacturers are adding some incredible lenses to smartphones that make it a very convenient device to capture daily moments and upload them quickly to social media apps. We see a trend of agents using their smartphones to take pictures for their listings. So we're showing you some quick tips on how to get the best possible image using an iPhone with iOS 9. All features listed below are available on the iPhone 5 or newer. 3. I Didn't Hire FOUR Listing Agents!There's nothing like becoming an ACTUAL customer of a product to give you a different perspective. I have looked at Zillow and other third party sites a gazillion times in my career as a consultant, but it took actually selling a home to really open my eyes.

December's Top 10 Articles: A Final Look Back at 2015
Did you know that January get its name from the Roman deity, Janus? He's the mythical god of beginnings and transitions and is depicted as having two faces--one looking to the future and one to the past. That's what our list of the previous month's most popular articles does--it takes one last look back before moving forward into the month ahead. And in December, we looked back more than usual as we revisited our most popular articles of the year. Below is our final monthly list of popular articles from 2015. Take a look to see what most interested your peers during the last month of the year. 1. Holiday Card Do's and Don'ts Have you ever received a holiday card that just made you cringe? Whether it's a picture of the cousins and their cat in matching pjs or Great Aunt Mildred in a DIY wrapping paper dress, there's some things you just can't unsee. While sending out bad cards to family is a tradition to some, it's not one you want to carry over into your business. Here are some do's and don'ts to help your greeting cards shine this holiday season. 2. 13 Amazingly Awful Property Pics that Shouldn't Have Been Listed (Plus 5 Gorgeous Examples)I always thought that posting property photos was rather high on the priority list of real estate agents — you know, to give prospects a rough idea of what their potential new home looks like. Based on these photos, it appears some agents aren't taking their job seriously. Or maybe they were just thinking outside the box? You can judge for yourself. 3. 6 Signs You Belong in the Real Estate IndustryBeing a REALTOR® takes a certain kind of person. It's not a profession meant for everyone. You have to be hard-working. You have to be motivated. You have to be persuasive and compassionate. But there are advantages to being an agent. If you've ever questioned whether you truly belong in this competitive, exciting industry, it's time to set your mind at ease. Here are the signs you are meant to be a real estate agent.

Top 10 Most Popular Articles of October
"Communication" was the theme of October, at least judging from our list of the most read articles of the month. We offered tricks for getting leads to respond to your texts (see #9 in the list below), suggested a series of email messages to send to prospects after an open house (#8!), and even explored an artificial intelligence program that will write listing descriptions for you (#2). And with Halloween on everyone's mind, we even put a spooky, seasonal spin on things. Article #6 on our list unveiled the communication missteps that lead to "home buyer horror stories." And, finally, our most popular article of the month offered 13 terrifying listing photos that will scare leads away (visual communication matters, folks!). Check out the list below to read all of the month's most popular posts: 1. 13 Listing Photos that Will Scare Prospects Away 'Tis the season for ghouls, ghosts, and all things that go bump in the night. However, if you're looking for something really scary, you need only look at some of the listing photos uploaded to MLSs around the country. Often, the most frightening thing about a bad property photo is that an agent thought it would somehow attract potential buyers. In the spirit of the season (and a good laugh), we've rounded up 13 of the scariest listing photos around. 2. Hate Writing Listing Descriptions? This App Does It For YouFor many real estate agents, writing is a dreaded, but necessary, chore. If you're not a person to whom writing comes naturally, it can be a massive time and energy drain. Fortunately, there's a new app that takes that pain out of writing--by doing it for you! Wordsmith from Automated Insights can take data from a spreadsheet, like market analytics or property information, and automatically generate a reader-friendly article, report, listing description, and beyond. 3. 4 Fresh Networking Ideas You Haven't Tried YetAre your old networking activities not engaging you like they used to? It may be time for a change of pace. Or maybe you already volunteer or belong to the local chamber of commerce and are just looking to add something new to your networking repertoire. Regardless of your reason, we've rounded up four alternative networking ideas to try. Some may be a little off the beaten path of what you're used to--but that's good for those who need to be shaken out of a networking rut!

The 10 Most Popular Articles from August
The final month of summer was a big one for real estate--Zillow put Market Leader up for sale, RPR launched a tablet app, and real estate pros were buzzing about that latest Inman Connect conference all month long. Seems like the industry as a whole could benefit from a little rest and recuperation during the upcoming holiday weekend! While you're taking a little breather this Labor Day, don't forget dive into the following list of our most popular articles from last month. After all, everything we publish on RE Technology is about laboring less--by using technology to work smarter, not harder. So grab a stiff drink and a plate of barbecue and learn the latest tips and tricks to keep your business running smoothly in the months ahead. 1. How to Convert a Document to PDF in 3 Easy Steps Need a quick, easy way to turn a document into a .PDF without having to pay for conversion software? You're in luck! If you have a Google account, you already have access to a free online tool that makes it a snap to change files to the format you need. Here's how. 2. Why You're Not Generating Real Estate Leads Online: A 5-point Troubleshooting GuideIt takes a lot of work to build and support a digital lead generation strategy. There are certain mandatory components of your online presence that must be fulfilled in order to effectively attract potential clients and capture their information. The worst thing you can do is to undermine the cumulative effect of your efforts by making one crucial omission in your online strategy. The following guide is for those who aren't satisfied with the volume of leads they are capturing online. 3. 8 Listing Presentation TipsTo convince potential home sellers that you're the real estate agent that will sell their home the fastest and for the highest price, you need to be prepared. Your listing presentation should highlight both your experience and your advanced marketing strategies. With that goal in mind, here are eight listing presentation tips that will help you WOW your prospects and win more listings.

Top 10 Articles from June
Summer's officially here, and we've got a list of recommended reading to ease you into a long, holiday weekend. Our list of the 10 most read articles from June runs the gamut from digital etiquette tips to how an iPad can make your open house better. Looking for a little pick-me-up? Check out article #10 where a Millennial explains why real estate agents will always be welcome and necessary in a transaction--whether they're tech savvy or not. Read on to see what other topics piqued the interest of your peers in June. 1. 11 Digital DON'Ts for Tech Savvy Agents Digital etiquette: what is it and what does it mean for real estate professionals? With an ever-expanding world of tech tools and toys, it can feel impossible to keep up – with both trends and client expectations. We're all just doing our best! In an effort to make navigating today's digital marketplace a little easier, we've put together this list of 11 DON'Ts for tech savvy agents that will help you avoid common faux pas and impress both clients and colleagues. 2. June Checklist: 4 Tasks Every Real Estate Agent Should CompleteSuccessful agents know that every client is not right for them, and that attracting the right clients in the first place will help them win more business. Follow our June checklist to refine your marketing message and start finding better clients in just four weeks. 3. What I Wish I'd Been Told as a New AgentReal estate is an exciting, rewarding career, but it's not for the faint of heart! Do you ever think back on why you got into the business in the first place? What drew you to becoming a REALTOR® and what do you wish you knew when you first embarked on the career? Here are a few things you may wish you knew when you were getting started as a real estate agent.

Top 10 Articles from March
Spring selling season is underway--a fact underscored by our list of last month's most popular articles. In April, articles on open houses, prospecting, and apps for getting ready for real estate's busiest time of year were all the rage. Here's a look at what else captured the attention of agents and brokers. 1. Why Reusing Listing Photos Could Mean Legal Trouble That house you sold in 2012 has just come back on the market. You know you still have a picture somewhere--there it is--and the home still looks pretty much the same. You upload the photo and relist the property. No problem, right? Well, actually, you could be stepping into some dangerous legal territory. 2. 6 Real Estate Prospecting IdeasDoes the very thought of real estate prospecting make you shudder? If so, you aren't alone. For many agents, prospecting is a necessary evil, one that is all too easy to postpone and drop to the bottom of your to do list. Yet real estate prospecting is one of the best ways to generate more real estate leads. It can be time consuming, but it's an exciting endeavor! We've compiled some of the best real estate prospecting ideas to help you save time and prospect like a pro. 3. 3 Tips for Standing Out at Your Next Open HouseWhen it comes to holding an open house, many REALTORS® prepare by ensuring the home is staged effectively. Many will bake chocolate chip cookies in the oven or even light a candle for that 'homey' scent. While all of this does help welcome prospective buyers into the home, there are other ways you can stand out and ensure that these buyers remember you, just as much as they remember the home itself. Here are a few ways RPR can help you do that.

20 Amazing Statistics that Real Estate Pros Need for 2015
People have even more access to digital channels than ever before and every industry is facing the effects of that. In the case of this blog post, real estate, is definitely showing signs of a major shift from traditional channels onto digital ones. Working with buyers and sellers every day, it's increasingly important to be omnipresent, especially since your clients are relying on your expertise on every digital channel. Over a year ago we came up with a list of 15 stats that every Realtor must know, but we wanted to revamp that list to bring it into 2015 (stats courtesy of National Association of Realtors [slideshow and white paper], Properties Online, Brian Buffini's Real Estate Report) and give you five more important pieces of data. 1. 70% of agents have a website 2. Only 12% of Realtors have a real estate blog 3. 56% of Realtors use social media 4. 92% of real estate agents prefer email in communicating with clients 5. 25% of agents generate more than 50% of their business from repeat clients

December's Top 10 Articles: A Final Look Back at 2014
Did you know that January get its name from the Roman deity, Janus? He's the mythical god of beginnings and transitions and is depicted as having two faces--one looking to the future and one to the past. That's what our list of the previous month's most popular articles does--it takes one last look back before moving forward into the month ahead. And in December, we looked back more than usual as we revisited our most popular articles of the year. Below is our final monthly list of popular articles from 2014. Take a look to see what most interested your peers during the last month of the year. 1. 6 Words Agents Can Use to Close More Deals in 2015When it comes to business, sometimes the smallest details can make the biggest difference—and sometimes, that detail can be as small as a simple word. We've been focusing on big-picture things that real estate professionals should be learning or doing right now to get ready to have a bigger, better 2015. But don't forget that the little things matter. Here are six simple words that can change the way you do business in 2015 and help you close more deals all year long. 2. Facebook Tightens Rules on Promotional PostsLike many small businesses, real estate agents have been enjoying a pretty sweet deal on Facebook for a while now. In recent years, many agents have taken to Facebook to promote their businesses and get the word out about listings, sales and open houses. For the most part, Facebook has been looking the other way on these kinds of posts. But it now looks like the days of freebie promotions on Facebook are over. 3. 10 Actions that Will Transform Your Communication SkillsCongratulations! A new lead or referral has just fallen into your lap. Now the hard work begins. In order to create that all-important connection that turns a prospect into a client, you need to understand what's important to the person you're talking to. These 10 interpersonal "hacks" will help you do just that--and transform you into a master communicator.

October's Top 10 Articles: Lead pick-up lines, Apps, and more
The competition for the 10 most popular articles was pretty fierce last month. RE Technology members were reading machines during October! Now that you're emerging from Halloween's sugar-induced coma and the days are shorter, it's a great time to catch up on the latest real estate technology. See our list below for 10 great places to start! 1. Keywords to Use in Listing Descriptions We conducted a study of nearly 300,000 active, US-based listings to produce a list of the most popular terms used to describe homes for sale and apartments for rent. Some of the results were unexpected and surprising. What word do you think appeared at the top of the list? 2. 10 Best Lead Pickup Lines for AgentsConnecting to new clients can induce a bit of déjà vu—the same anxiety that made you too nervous to ask a date to the dance or reluctant to talk to the attractive girl or guy across the room can hold you back in business. If you've ever run into new conversation anxiety or just aren't sure how to kick off the chatter when new clients loom, this post is for you. 3. Why You Should ALWAYS Like Your Own Facebook StatusYou've probably seen Facebook friends continually 'Liking' their own status updates and thought: Isn't it enough to simply publish a post and leave it at that? Perhaps their actions have made you think they're too self-obsessed or a bit too desperate for approval, but what if we told you that doing so could improve your real estate business?

Top 10 Articles from August
Happy Labor Day! We hope you're enjoying summer's last gasp with a belly full of barbeque and a stiff drink in hand. Before you make the official transition into fall, take some time to peruse our list of the most popular articles from summer's final month. Cheers to your continued success in the season ahead! 1. 11 Questions to Ask Buyers After a Showing How saleable are your listings? One way to find out is to collect feedback from buyers who have toured them. Listing agents can, in turn, use this information to initiate sometimes tough conversations with sellers about price and marketability. We turned to a top producing Realtor to find out what's most useful to ask. 2. 5 Things Top Agents Do Every DayThe differences between productive agents and average agents are stark. If your aim is to join the ranks of the super producers, adopting some of their habits is a good way to get started. Perform these five tasks every day and you'll be on your way! 3. The Property Search Portal that Doesn't Want Your MoneySince entering the competitive portal space 18 months ago, Househappy has differentiated itself with a distinct "Pinterest-like" focus on visual search. But for real estate pros, the best part is the site's hardlined determination to NOT make money off of agents and brokers. Profiles are free, and there are no banner nor advertising programs for agents to buy.

Top 10 Articles from June
Summer's officially here, and we've got a list of recommended reading to ease you into a long, holiday weekend. Our list of the 10 most read articles from June runs the gamut from fixing slow computers to creating iPad listing presentations to a look at the kind of cyber attack that brought realtor.com® down earlier this month. Read on to see what other topics piqued the interest of your peers in June. 1. 15 Networking Secrets of Successful Real Estate Agents Most of these shouldn't exactly be secrets. But given how important networking is in the real estate business, it's still amazing how many agents don't make the most out of their networking opportunities. Here are some of the best practices to get you started. 2. Your Top 4 Computer Problems: Solved!Having computer troubles? You're not alone. Unresolved tech issues are a sure way to slow your real estate business down. So let's try a little damage control. We talked to a tech support team that specializes in helping agents for easy fixes to your computer woes. 3. Dealing With Disloyal ClientsHave you experienced a "cheating" client? Plenty of agents have. Whatever the circumstance, it hurts to lose a client like this. There are a few things you can do to prevent this from happening again, but here are some tips on what to do right now.

Krisstina Wise: The Birth of a Brand
If you work in real estate and have any interest in technology, you've heard of Krisstina Wise. She's the powerhouse behind GoodLife Realty, a brokerage that has redefined tech savvy and company culture. She's also a frequent keynote speaker at major industry events and conventions. But you probably haven't seen much of Krisstina in the last year . . . because she almost died. Yes, the athletic, vibrant, multi-tasking Krisstina finally hit the wall and became very ill. What could have been the end of her career (and possibly her life) actually became the start of something wonderful. She was forced into self-reflection and discovered that, despite all her success, there was something missing. She wasn't pursuing her true passion: helping other women learn to love money and use money to live a great life. Krisstina regained her health and reimagined her life, with a new goal firmly intact. Falling for Money One of the keys to success is finding your gift, the unique value you bring to others, and honoring it. Krisstina recognized that her passion extended beyond real estate; she could also use her life experience and unique perspective to help other professional women live healthy, balanced, financial free good lives. You see, Krisstina wasn't always the powerful woman we know today. She grew up poor and worked hard to create a nest egg, only to lose it all. "At the root of all my problems was an unhealthy relationship with money," Krisstina explains. "I had to embrace my financial ambition, create healthy habits, and just generally get smart about the green stuff if I wanted to create a real and lasting wealth." And so she began a course of study that involved intensive reading and training under leading financial gurus.

Top 10 Articles from March
True to the old adage, March came in like a lion, pummeling much of the nation with a final wintry blast. Here in California, the month brought only a few paltry rain showers--not nearly enough to end our record drought or the water restrictions in many communities. It's probably safe to say that most of us are glad that April's here. March wasn't all bad, however. At RE Technology, we welcomed new members from Greater Alabama MLS, Honolulu Board of REALTORS®, Georgia MLS, Duluth Area Association of Realtors, MIAMI Association of REALTORS®, Jackson Area Association of REALTORS®, Park City Board of REALTORS®, Trend MLS, Mainstreet Organization of Realtors, and Valley MLS. And we had a wealth of great content, too. Judging by our most read articles, prospecting was top of mind with real estate pros last month. What else captured agents' and brokers' attention in March? Check out our list of our most popular articles below to find out. 1. Why Not FSBO - by Properties Online Many home sellers looking to boost their revenue may consider listing their home as For Sale By Owner (FSBO). The logic, usually, is that not having to cough up an agent's commission will be worth the headache and hassle. That logic is, more often than not, fatally flawed. 2. Prospecting: 9 Reasons Your Efforts Aren't Working- by Lee SowersA year-round steady flow of customers is the Holy Grail of real estate. Without it, you end up staggering from deal to deal praying you're going to meet your monthly goals. Is your business where you want it to be?

Top 10 Articles from January
A quick etymology lesson: the word January is named after Janus, the Roman god of doorways, beginnings, endings, and time. He's the mythological deity depicted with two faces--one looking to the past and one to the future. It's an appropriate image for the first month of the year, when people are reviewing the year that just ended and the one ahead. Our content in January reflected this mindset--several articles looked back on RE Technology's best posts from 2013, while others suggested resolutions for the year ahead. Below is our round-up of the most popular articles from January. Our contributors looked back, looked forward, and suggested plenty of great tech tips to help your business in 2014. 1. Best Tablet Apps for Real Estate Agents - by Geneva Ives While we all love our smartphones, tablets are increasingly prevalent in the marketplace today. In many cases, especially for real estate agents, they're easier and more convenient to use. Would you rather show a client pictures of your new listing on your phone or on your iPad? We thought so. 2. 4 Lead Generation Sources: Which Should You Budget for in 2014? - by Kelly PhelanSome lead generation sources, like social media and Craigslist, only require an investment of time and motivation. But at the start of a new year, many real estate pros are more concerned about paid sources of lead generation and where--or if--they fit into their annual budget. 3. How I Took My Real Estate Business Paperless - by Kathy RukatI love my iPhone and iPad, but finding the right combo of apps was the biggest challenge. I think I finally have a winning combo that gives me peace of mind while I am out of the office so that I won't miss a beat – either an opportunity or a client's deadline.

Top 10 Articles from December
Happy New Year! Before we turn our full attention to 2014, let's take a moment to look back on the year and month that just ended. Below is a list of our most popular articles from December. This list excludes articles that ran as part of our special "Best of 2013" series. (You can read that list here.) Enjoy! 1. 14 Apps You Need to Succeed in 2014 - by Jared Daniel From tools to optimize your inbox, measure your email campaigns' performance, consolidate project tasks and more, these apps are a must-have for organizing your business and enhancing your clients' experiences! 2. 5 Facebook Tips and 51 Status Updates For Real Estate Professionals - by Nathan FroelichMost real estate agents have a love-hate relationship with Facebook, meaning they love to hate it. It's easier to hate Facebook than admit we don't understand how to make it work for our business. The reality is that when used effectively, Facebook can put you in front of hundreds or even thousands of people for little to no cost. 3. An Appraiser's Perspective on RPR® - by Emily WilliamsFrancois "Frank" Gregoire is a REALTOR®, broker, and full-time real estate appraiser. As a member of RPR's® Appraiser Task Force from the very beginning, Frank has had a unique opportunity to observe and shape the growth of the tool. His insights can aid agents and appraisers in growing their business.

Top 10 Articles from October
With a chill in the air and shorter days upon us, there's no better time to hunker down and catch up on the latest real estate technology issues. Our list of the top articles from October is a great educational guide to get you started. 1. Lose the Paperwork, Build Your Business With the iPad - by Jared Daniel Many agents and brokers have yet to adopt the concept of going paperless. According to Garry Wise of the GoodLife Team, on average, paperless agents save five hours per transaction. It's no secret that real estate professionals have hectic schedules, so why wouldn't you want to save yourself a little time to get back to the things you enjoy? 2. 6 Marketing Tools to Build Your Business - by Emily WilliamsYour marketing efforts serve two masters: you and your sellers. Let's discuss the latter first. Marketing each seller's property helps you to move it more quickly and for more money. Pretty obvious, right? Then there's the other side of marketing, the marketing you do to increase your client base. That's what we're here to discuss today. 3. Secrets to Success with RPR® - by Emily WilliamsRealtors Property Resource® (RPR®) is a free member benefit from the National Association of REALTORS®. The compelling cost-benefit ratio and impressive functionality create an appealing package, one that we were interested to see "in action." So, we've spoken with a variety of agents around the country to learn how they are using RPR® to be more successful.

Top 10 Articles from August
School's back in session--but successful real estate agents never stop learning! Here are the articles that most piqued your peers' interest during the final few weeks of summer: 1. How to Impress on a Listing Presentation - by Shannon O'Brien of Market Leader You only have one chance to create a good first impression. That chance lasts 100 milliseconds, according to Princeton University researchers. Knowing this, and knowing that homeowners typically only spend one day interviewing listing agents, puts the pressure on to make your listing presentation massively impressive. 2. Creating a Powerful Email Signature - by Katie Ragusa of TribusSaving the perfect email signature will limit the amount that you have to spend typing when you bring an email to a close. For your leads and clients, it can make an easy way for them to locate your contact information and website. However, when used incorrectly, an email signature can be quite a disaster. 3. Why Zillow and Trulia Don't Matter Today - by Matthew FerraraToday, the game isn't finding buyers but capturing sellers. For lots of reasons – investors, artificially low interest rates, strangling foreclosure laws - the nation is suddenly facing an inventory shortage in housing again. 4. 99 Blog Topic Ideas for Real Estate Agents - by Chad Bhalla of WebsiteBoxCreating good content is hard, and constantly coming up with new topics to write about can become frustrating--especially when writer's block sets in. So when you are feeling frustrated don't bang your head against your desk, check this list of 99 blog ideas for real estate agents.

Top 10 Articles from May
What tech related issues mattered to agents most during May? If our monthly list of most read articles is any indication, mobile apps and lead generation were top of mind. Read on to see what else interested your peers. And don't forget to check out our 2013 Technology Guide (see #10 to learn more), too! Released May 7, this free resource is designed to help real estate pros research tech products. Use it as your guide to finding solutions that help your your business compete as the weather and housing market heat up. 1. DOs and DON'Ts of Texting for Real Estate Agents - by Geneva Ives of Point2 You may have noticed that many of your clients, particularly the younger set, prefer to communicate via text message. In fact, it's estimated that over 8 trillion text messages will be sent this year. Texting is a convenient way of sharing information quickly, but it's not without its pitfalls for professionals. 2. 5 Must Have Apps for REALTORS® - by Katie Ragus of TribusIf you have some application favorites that make your day to day real estate business run a little smoother, we would love your feedback in the comments below! I've got plenty of suggestions on apps, but here are the top five that made our "Must Have" list to get you started. 3. 3 Apps for Better Photo Lighting - by Kelly J. PhelanLighting is one of the most important factors in photography. Nothing says "amateur photo" like a poorly lit shot. That's why we were excited to learn about a type of app that can help you figure out the perfect time of day for taking exterior property photos. These apps work a lot like Google Maps, but instead of giving you directions, they provide you with the angle of the sun for any location you choose.

Top 10 Articles from March
Spring made its official debut in March, and judging by which articles piqued the most interest last month, it's safe to say that agents and brokers are gearing up for spring selling season. From mobile apps to lead generation tips, here are our most popular articles from March. 1. The Four Apps Every Real Estate Agent Needs to Download Immediately - by HomeFinder.com Every real estate agent could use a personal assistant: someone to prepare listing presentations, send out closing documents, or remember to congratulate clients on a new promotion. While not everyone can afford a personal assistant, everyone can afford the below four apps. Use one or all of these apps to lend you a hand as you go about your busy day! 2. Take Better Real Estate Photos with Your iPhone - by Point2We're going to come right out and say it: it's not altogether a terrible idea to take property photos with your iPhone. While smartphone images still can't compete with those taken by a professional photographer (and yes, with a professional camera), each successive generation of iPhone boasts a steadily improving camera. And the advantage of using your phone is obvious – it's the camera you always have with you! 3. 3 Tips for Creating an Effective Lead Generation Follow-Up Strategy - by Amy ChorewIn a recent survey by Forbes, it was found that over 71 percent of Internet leads were lost, marked dead or simply thrown out. So how could this happen when a company's hard-earned money was allocated and budgeted for online lead generation? It's simple. Lead management is still a significant problem for many real estate professionals.

Top 10 Articles from January
If we had only this list of top articles from last month to judge by, we'd say that RE Technology readers stand a great chance of keeping their resolutions to better their real estate businesses in 2013. From real estate signs to iPad listing presentations to improving your property photos, agents and brokers were hungry for some meaty topics. Read on to see what articles piqued the most interest in January. 1. 5 Awesomely Bad Listing Photos - by Point2 We all know that great photos help sell homes. But how about really bad photos? Today for a laugh, we're going to share with you five truly terrible real estate photos. And we'll tell you how they could've been avoided. 2. Top 13 Apps to Start Your New Year Off Right - by Homes.comThis past November, Homes.com's Joe Sesso presented the "Top 13 Apps for Success in 2013" at the National Association of REALTORS® Expo in Orlando. The presentation was a huge hit among real estate professionals. If you were unable to attend, don't worry — we've got a video for you, as well as the links to download all of these apps! Get your iPhone, iPad or Android device handy and start installing these as you watch! 3. 4 Steps to Becoming a Stronger Listing Agent - by Kelly PhelanA healthy real estate strategy includes cultivating both buyers and sellers. After all, the two groups have a symbiotic relationship with each other. A robust pool of buyers to market to enables you to sell listings faster, while a set of solid listings helps you attract higher quality buyers. Growing both sides makes for a stronger, more well-rounded business.

Inman Connect NY: Day 2
We're continuing our coverage of Inman Connect New York (check out Day 1 here) by following the official conference hashtag on Twitter, #ICNY. We've organized tweets chronologically and by presentation below for easier reading. Enjoy! Looking Out Two Years, What is Next for Technology? @utahREpro - Technology is an enabler and we are storing all of this data. Predictive analytics are going to be big going forward - Steve Berkowitz #ICNY @EV_USA - It's not just about the technology. It's how it can be used to improve client experience. #icny # evusa @debra11 - People (online consumers) want to stay anonymous as long as possible... When they are ready - THEY will reveal themselves.#ICNY @susanharrison - The role of #realtors is to help the public interpret the data - that's the value-add #ICNY

Top 10 Articles from December
While December is typically mellow, this year two content series encouraged a lot more activity. The first, our Holiday Deals series, highlighted discounts and giveaways on real estate tech tools, one of which appears on this list. The second series, a countdown of the best articles of 2012, was overwhelmingly popular. While we've excluded those from this list (they would have dominated it!), you can view a summary of the countdown here. But before you check out those must-reads, have a look at December's most popular original articles: 1. Real Estate Websites Do Not Generate Leads - by BrokerageU Is your website helping your business the way you expected it to? The reason might be that the person who sold you your website left out one little, but valuable, piece of information: Your website will not generate leads for your real estate business. 2. How To Create Marketing Emails From Scratch - by Point2Email is a powerful tool when used correctly. Having the right message land in your customer's inbox at the right time can have a dramatic, positive impact on your business, while a half-baked or broken message can banish your future mailings to the spam folder forever. While it is easy enough to whip up a quick n' dirty message in Outlook or Gmail and hit send, there is a world of little things you can do to elevate a good message to a holy-cow-I-have-to-have-it kind of message. 3. Crush Your Next Open House with Social Events - by Zack Hanebrink of BoomTownDo you still do open houses? I've heard mixed reviews lately on their effectiveness. However, if promoted the right way, they are a great source for buyer leads, along with establishing your brand in the neighborhood. It takes more than directional signs and a balloon in the yard to promote an open house.